The answer to the Prop 8 question as to why they chose to not display “couples” is quite simple. You have to frame arguments in such a way as to not seem completely liberal if you want to win anything.
Take tax cuts. Pelosi would like to do away with the Bush tax cuts. Obama actually has to win a national election not in some NoCal dreamworld. Typically when I hear a Biden or Obama speech at the end I feel as if they are as military-minded as Joe-6-pack, not the typical pacifist liberal you’d find on the internets….
The years of Dukakis stumbling and bumbling over questions about his wife getting raped taught the democrats well. When you want to win a national election don’t sound like an ivory-tower pontificating liberal. Or, we’ve all seen the assemblyman/congressman type races where a democrat talks tough of crime, despite the fact that in general we view left-wingers as being more of the rehabilitation types. Similarly here in California, if you want to get something like Prop 8 passed, it’s much easier to show all of the common people affected by having gay relatives rather than the couples themselves. People can relate to a set of old folks bemoaning about how unfair it is for their kid because they probably know people who’ve wrestled with that issue.
Thus I don’t find what they did disingenuous at all. Rather I’d say it was to be expected and realistically well thought out. We’ll never really know but my guess is it made the race closer.
