Is Legalizing Weed Obama's Secret Weapon?

Atlantic Wire ^ | June 13, 2012 | Elspeth Reeve

[yoe]

n 2004 George W. Bush's re-election campaign worked to put anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives up for vote in several swing states in order to turn out more hard-core conservatives to the polls. This year the question is whether marijuana legalization measures will turn out young voters for Obama.

Bush's plan to use gay marriage bans -- in states that did not actually allow gay marriage -- as a turnout booster led to signs featuring icky public restroom symbols proliferated and liberal panic that the Christian right had taken over. The press obsessed over "values voters." One of Bush's aides, Ken Mehlman, who later came out as gay himself, has apologized for the strategy, two others say it didn't work.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

FDR promised to end Prohibition and got elected.

[X-spurt]

That ought to insure the paulbot vote!

[Dr. Sivana]

That is the exact type of wedge issue that will cause disruption within the Democrat party for years to come. If the party-backed incumbent president supports legalizing dope nationwide, it will be hard for Dems who want to be perceived as meat and potatoes types to make a stronf contrast without weakening party unity.

Besides that, outright leaglization would open the same Pandora’s box that Lawrence v. Texas opened up; before, under Bowers v. Hardwick, there was NO way to promote laws to change the definition of marriage. Once pot is legal, can employers test for it? Yes? But not without taking flack that they haven’t had to take until now.

[clbiel]

+ 1

[Brad from Tennessee]

Obama hasn't done anything to indicate he supports marijuana legalization. The feds have been cracking down on the quasi-legal medical pot industry in California and elsewhere ever since Obama took office.

Legalizing marijuana could result in the Mexican drug cartels—60 percent of whose illegal export profits are from pot—losing control of the U.S. market.

This is a dated story but it is a credible picture of how illegal drug profits find their way to Democratic causes:

http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-hidden-soros-agenda-drugs-money-the-media-and-political-power/

[hinckley buzzard]

Actually it was Herbert Hoover who spoke for the repeal of Prohibition in his acceptance speech of 1932. He lost. It was ended in December 1933 not by FDR but with the 21st Amendment.

[Secret Agent Man]

Let him. Half his base won’t show up to vote until the next day.

[jospehm20]

Don't sell Barry and his fellow travelers short. They are plenty stupid.