The Power of Identity Politics

If one of the Republican debates was being sponsored by the NRA and several other "gun nut" groups, what would be the reaction of the news media? Screeching about how the Republican Party is now "owned" by the gun nuts, and how shameful this is.

But you aren't going to be hearing anything from the mainstream media now that groups representing a much smaller fraction of Americans--and who are at least as disapproved of by the majority as gun owners--is sponsoring one of the Democratic debates (depending on which ads they are running at the moment, this may not be worksafe):

Four Democratic presidential candidates are now confirmed to participate in the first-ever televised primary debate about LGBT issues, sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and Logo. Senators Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, and Barack Obama and former senator John Edwards will attend the event, to be held August 9 in Los Angeles. But one candidate, former senator Mike Gravel, was not invited to the debate because he didn't meet the fund-raising threshold for participants.

HRC spokesman Brad Luna said HRC and Logo initially set out to sponsor two different forums, one for Republican candidates and one for Democratic candidates.

“The precondition we set before those forums could be confirmed was that two out of the three leading candidates would have to confirm their attendance,” Luna said. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney declined the invitation, and Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain never responded, so the GOP forum never got off the ground.

I'm impressed--just about the only news organizations covering this are gay news organizations. Perhaps the mainstream media don't want to remind the voters that the Democrats are the gay party.