2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary needs to stop with her bul**hit about DOMA [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)But you haven't. The fact remains that a veto of DOMA would likely have stripped more than eight percent from his lead. The country wasn't feeling it back then. 27% support for marriage equality v. 68% opposed. He would have had his ass handed to him.
And that isn't just "one" issue. That was a Moral Majority/Culture Wars issue of the first order that permeated every aspect of daily life--"think of the children" and all that. Words like "lifestyle" and "choice" were still being bandied about. And it wasn't just "the south" that had a problem with it, either (look at California--quite recently, too; and VT couldn't get past "civil unions" as late as 2006). The only reason the GOP didn't go after Clinton on that issue is because he blocked them from doing it by signing that damn thing and getting onboard with that unholy alliance. He was pragmatic and craven but he was also between a rock and a hard place. There was just no good solution that would have kept him in office.