News publications and social media outlets seemed to explode yesterday as President Obama made the announcement during an exclusive ABC interview that after personal reflection he supports same-sex marriage. Now the analysis begins by Republican and Democrats as to whether this will help or harm President Obama’s campaign for re-election in the 2012 Presidential Election.
Recent political polls show that support of same-sex marriage has been on the rise and now most recent poll results indicate that a majority of American’s are in favor of same-sex marriage. Where there was once a strong polarization about the issue of same-sex marriage latest finding indicate that this gap is narrowing. While many in the younger generation are supporters of same-sex marriage opinions of the baby boomer are also shifting to be more accepting of gay marriage. Even though there is a broader acceptance over a once highly polarizing issue the decision to publicly announce acceptance of gay marriage may have less of an impact as the media would have you believe. In almost all of the 2012 Romney vs. Obama polls their respective bases are already firmly behind them leaving the candidates to fight for the essential independent voters, especially in the 2012 swing states. However, when looking at what issues are most important to independent voters around two-thirds said that a candidates position on gay marriage wasn’t important to them.
In fact both candidates stated that they won’t push this social issue much further and plan to focus on jobs and the economy. The announcement did create quite a stir though especially through popular social media outlets like Facebook and twitter. Obtaining over 7,000 tweets per minute the announcement was trending worldwide and sparking interest from the youth vote who has become more disinterested since 2008. Whether the announcement has a large political impact, boosts Obama’s approval ratings or has virtually none at all won’t be known until we all cast our ballots in November. What one thing is for certain is the endorsement as well as same-sex marriage debates will infiltrate our election news headlines, political polls and conversation until then.
