Obama speaks to LGBT community

For only the second time in his presidential campaign, Barack Obama has conducted an interview with The Advocate, the nation's leading gay magazine, in a wide-ranging interview. In the interview, he reiterates his position that he tries to speak mostly to general audiences, and points out that both the African American press and Latino press have also criticized him for not speaking to them. But at last he is appealing to a very interesting public in the presidential race: that of the LGBT community.

Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama has been weathering a small storm lately in the LGBT community for being too tight-lipped with gay and lesbian news media.

Unlike his rival Hillary Clinton, who's given interviews to Logo and several local papers since appearing on the cover of The Advocate last fall, the Illinois senator has only talked once, to address the Donnie McClurkin controversy. But last week, his campaign offered our magazine an exclusive sit-down in Chicago with the man who may well become the next President of the United States.

To some extent, it symbolizes the brilliance of a protracted primary contest where candidates continually pivot and adjust in order to engage ever more voters. Had the race stopped cold in the snows of New Hampshire, gays and lesbians would have been left with one interview of record for each Democratic candidate in total.

However, this interview is a carefully constructed publicity ploy, in my view. Though I find Obama to be genuine than the average politician, he is actually very middle of the road in responses about gay and lesbian issues, just as he was very judicious in his racism speech. Barack Obama has a delicate balancing act as a biracial presidential candidate. He will speak to the GLBT community, but does not make any broad promises. He says he will try to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" before reverting to his usual "I want to appeal to everyone" rhetoric.

So my question is this: Ahead of Pennsylvania, is this interview carefully timed to portray Obama as more inclusive than Hillary Clinton? I'm not too familiar with the voting base in PA, but with the race tightening, is Obama trying to grab some on-the-fence LGBT voters?

At any rate, this interview puts forth the implied promise that, unlike Bill Clinton in the 90s, Barack Obama is not going to throw queer voters under the bus. But how far would he be willing to go? My guess is that he will not mention LGBT issues again until he is actually in the White House, if he wins. Unfortunately, LGBT issues are still a divisive issue for many people, particularly regarding marriage equality.

Does this interview hurt or help Barack Obama's public image with conservative Democrats? Could this potentially harm him in PA?

Obama also runs the risk of once again raising accusations from the right that he is too liberal. With that in mind, is this interview potentially damaging because it reestablishes him as a supporter of queer rights?