Mar 07, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Gay supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said they believe strong backing from gay voters in Texas and Ohio contributed to her primary victories in both states on Tuesday, helping to lift her campaign from near collapse and giving her a fighting chance of winning her party’s nomination.

Supporters of rival presidential hopeful Barack Obama challenged that assessment, saying the gay vote appears to have split evenly between the two candidates in both states, while acknowledging that Clinton received endorsements from more high-profile gay leaders in Texas and Ohio than Obama.

A number of gay supporters of both Clinton and Obama said gay issues may not have been the deciding factor among gays in choosing between the two candidates.

“Most of what I hear from our members is not about gay issues because everyone feels they are both good and almost exactly the same on those issues,” said Kelli Zehnder, president of Stonewall Democrats of Cleveland, a gay group.

“Everybody is looking at other issues,” said Zehnder, a Clinton supporter.

Robert Raben, a gay former Justice Department attorney during the Clinton administration who now works as a lobbyist for mostly Democratic Party clients, said the fact that both remaining Democratic presidential contenders are strong supporters of gay rights represents a historic advancement for gays.

“They would both be terrific leaders on GLBT issues,” Raben said. “For once, we get to be just like straight people. For the next few months, the question for us is who would be the best standard bearer for our party? Who has the best position on national security and the economy?”

Raben is remaining neutral until one emerges as the winner.

“I love them both,” Raben said.

Coming on the heels of losing 12 consecutive primaries or caucuses to Obama, including the Vermont primary on Tuesday, many political observers declared Clinton’s prospects for wining the nomination dead in the water and called on her to drop out of the race.

All such talk ended Tuesday night when she beat Obama in the Ohio primary by a 54 percent to 44 percent margin and defeated him in the Texas primary by a margin of 51 percent to 47 percent. She also won the Rhode Island primary that same night by a margin of 58 percent to 40 percent.

Obama easily won the Vermont primary, also held Tuesday, by a 60 percent to 38 percent margin.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that despite her victories in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, Clinton reduced Obama’s lead in delegates by just 12. According to AP, as of Wednesday afternoon, Obama remained ahead of Clinton in the delegate count by 1,562 to 1,461. The count included elected delegates as well as unpledged superdelegates.

Nearly all political observers are now saying that neither Obama nor Clinton are likely to obtain the required 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination before the Democratic National Convention set for August. In an effort to obtain as many delegates as possible in the remaining primaries prior to the convention, both candidates were expected to redouble their outreach to all constituency groups, including gays.

Gay Clinton and Obama supporters said their respective campaigns each would likely campaign aggressively for the gay vote in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary, the last big state primary.

The Obama campaign raised eyebrows among gay activists in late February when it purchased full-page ads in gay newspapers in Texas and Ohio and released an open letter from Obama to the gay communities of both states. The campaign ads marked the first known time that a major party presidential candidate specifically targeted gay voters through advertising.

“While we have come a long way since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do,” one ad said. “Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans,” Obama said in the ad. “It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all of its citizens with dignity and respect.”

The ad, which included a picture of Obama, invites readers to visit the Obama campaign web site “for more information on voting.”

Eric Stern, a member of the Obama campaign’s LGBT Policy Committee, said members of that committee as well as members of the campaign’s National LGBT Leadership Council have been advising campaign officials on projects like the gay ad and the open letter to the gay community.

Tobias Wolff, a gay University of Pennsylvania Law School professor, serves as ...