The Other McCain

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Democrat 2016 Hopeful Schweitzer Implodes After ‘Gaydar’ Comment

Posted on | June 19, 2014 | 35 Comments

If you were betting on former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer as a 2016 Democrat presidential dark horse, you just lost. Out of a clear blue sky, in a total non sequitur, Schweitzer decided to gay-bait a Republican — and every man in the South while he was at it:

Last week, I called him on the night Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated in his GOP primary. “Don’t hold this against me, but I’m going to blurt it out. How do I say this . . . men in the South, they are a little effeminate,” he offered when I mentioned the stunning news. When I asked him what he meant, he added, “They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say — and I’m fine with gay people, that’s all right — but my gaydar is 60-70 percent. But he’s not, I think, so I don’t know. Again, I couldn’t care less. I’m accepting.”

Ed Morrissey points out that Cantor and his wife have been married for 25 years and have three children. As if he hadn’t damaged himself enough by gay-baiting Cantor, however, Schweitzer also decided to call Dianne Feinstein a whore, more or less.

So . . . Martin O’Malley, anyone?

 

Comments

35 Responses to “Democrat 2016 Hopeful Schweitzer Implodes After ‘Gaydar’ Comment”

  1. Jeanette Victoria
    June 19th, 2014 @ 10:04 pm

    Funny how the Democrats prove over and over again they are what they project onto conservatives

  2. robertstacymccain
    June 19th, 2014 @ 10:26 pm

    1. What’s weird is that he would actually say this stuff to a reporter.
    2. I can’t understand anyone thinking of Southern men as “effeminate.” How many Southerners does Schweitzer actually know?

  3. Jeanette Victoria
    June 19th, 2014 @ 10:30 pm

    I thought the same he couldn’t know any real Southern men, unless he had only gone into a big university town. The fellas in Chapel Hill NC aren’t particularly manly you know gun-hating vegan liberals with feelings

  4. TiminAL
    June 19th, 2014 @ 10:48 pm

    The responses to his FB “Apology” are hilarious. Pass the Kool Aid, please

  5. cmdr358
    June 19th, 2014 @ 11:37 pm

    I’d love to hear his views on Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark and of course the Big Apple!

  6. kilo6
    June 20th, 2014 @ 12:25 am

    Schweitzer has a brain the size of a tangerine

  7. darleenclick
    June 20th, 2014 @ 12:46 am

    While the statement appears wildly stupid and inappropriate, there seems to be a meme among the progressives to “dog whistle” or broadly hint that male Republicans are gay. And worse, despite wives & kids, are really *closeted* gays.

    Scott Walker gets this nudge*nudge*wink*wink* treatment often.

    It’s just plain creepy.

  8. Montana Democrat Brian Schweitzer Has Some Unresolved Issues | Batshit Crazy News
    June 20th, 2014 @ 12:49 am

    […] TOM: Democrat Brian Schweitzer Implodes After Gadar Comment […]

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 20th, 2014 @ 12:54 am
  10. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 20th, 2014 @ 12:59 am

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmVP0dvmiqI

    There is such as thing as the effeminate southern guy. This is blasphemous, but actually sort of funny.

  11. Adjoran
    June 20th, 2014 @ 1:49 am

    A lot of people who live in the Mountain West states think they are Mountain Men even though their idea of roughing it is living in Billings with only one opera company, four theaters, three museums, and ten microbreweries.

    Brian Schweitzer should take a trip into the Bayou with the Robertsons, and then call Southerners effeminate. Better yet, mention it before the trip.

  12. Jupiter C.
    June 20th, 2014 @ 2:49 am

    It’s just shockingly odd. On par with shooting himself in the foot, while he’s looking at his foot, literally.

  13. David R. Graham
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:02 am

    Being married with children does not mean one is not queer. “Mainline Christian” and “Evangelical Christian” churches are chock-a-block with self-promoting so-called clergy who are married with children and also queer. The Episcopal Church, long since a storefront of the Democratic Party, is exhibit A of the phenomenon.

  14. David R. Graham
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:06 am

    Yes, Althouse blogs the phenomenon today.

  15. Wombat_socho
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:06 am

    Well, he did say it on MSNBC. How was he to know there’s people that actually still watch it who haven’t drunk the Koolaid?

  16. Quartermaster
    June 20th, 2014 @ 6:37 am

    And where did you come about this “information?”

    There may be a few, but “chock-a-block?” That’s silly. It’s akin to accusing the Roman Catholic Church of ordaining nothing but pedophiles, which is also silly.

  17. Quartermaster
    June 20th, 2014 @ 6:39 am

    You misspelled Chapel Hell.

  18. Dana
    June 20th, 2014 @ 8:46 am

    Probably enough to know that he can say that in Charlotte, with armed guards all around, but he might want to keep his mouth shut in Tuscaloosa.

  19. Dana
    June 20th, 2014 @ 8:48 am

    Our womenfolk are more macho than Mr Schweitzer.

  20. Dana
    June 20th, 2014 @ 8:49 am

    And the reason is simple: despite their oh-so-inclusive statements, deep down they view implications of homosexuality as an insult.

  21. Art Deco
    June 20th, 2014 @ 11:51 am

    I recall the sociologist Edward Laumann estimated that the proportion of the adult population who are given to homosexuality to a greater or lesser degree amounts to 2.8% at any one time. The share of those who’ve been married for 25 years and have multiple children I would suggest is modest. You might locate a member of Congress who fits that description, but you only think it plausible with any given member of Congress if you have trouble with math.

    There’s almost nothing about Cantor which suggests that scenario has even the smallest elevated likelihood. He married at an ordinary age for a college educated male (26), he sired all his children; his wife was never married previously and did not have any children when they married, is a functional and well preserved professional woman who must have had other options (and may still, unusual for a woman in her 50s), and is not so much older than he is to suggest she is a sort of mother substitute (five years, not surprising given their marriage is endogamous). This is about the last person you’d accuse of being a switch-hitter.

  22. David R. Graham
    June 20th, 2014 @ 2:24 pm

    I am not implying Cantor is queer. I am certain he is not. My point is that married with family is not automatically a sign of being not queer.

  23. David R. Graham
    June 20th, 2014 @ 2:26 pm

    I am a clergyman. And no, what I said is not akin to accusing RCC of ordaining nothing but pedophiles. And you know it.

  24. K-Bob
    June 20th, 2014 @ 2:55 pm

    Ding!

  25. Jeanette Victoria
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:26 pm

    Yes they all live in Asheville

  26. Art Deco
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:39 pm

    My point is that married with family is not automatically a sign of being not queer.

    No, but that’s what it will mean 99% of the time. Your point is unimportant.

  27. Art Deco
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:41 pm

    You’re point is overstated.

  28. Dana
    June 20th, 2014 @ 3:42 pm

    If the estimated ranges for homosexuality are anywhere close to correct, roughly 3% of the population, and we have a significant “open” homosexual population, then either the percentage of married men who are homosexual or bisexual has to be very, very small.

    Actually, I’d suggest that the definitions are wrong, giving us wrong numbers. There are some men, married and single, who consider themselves to be heterosexual, because they want the complete sexual experience with women — love and family along with sex — but who are willing to occasionally take a walk on the Wilde side for sex only. I’d suggest that that group might be a bit larger than people suspect.

  29. Quartermaster
    June 20th, 2014 @ 6:01 pm

    How soon they forget….

    I know exactly who you are and what you are. My analogy stands and your statement is utterly silly.

  30. David R. Graham
    June 21st, 2014 @ 1:34 am

    Deliberately.

  31. David R. Graham
    June 21st, 2014 @ 1:35 am

    When I drove public transit, I remarked that people spent thousands of dollars with shrinks trying to find out who they are, where they came from and where they are going, but public transit operators receive that information every day free of charge.

  32. David R. Graham
    June 21st, 2014 @ 1:42 am

    Concur, plus, the clerical realm, on which my point focused, is not the same as the at-large population. It attracts queers, part of the power trip of being clergy. It also attracts guys looking to lay women, BTW. Middle-aged and juvenile women not a few throw themselves at clergy. Again, the power trip. People think clergy are closer to God than they are and that phenomenon attracts sex-focused individuals, queer and not, to clerical ranks. Not the only thing that does, but a major one. Not generally known to the population at-large.

  33. David R. Graham
    June 21st, 2014 @ 1:44 am

    Hardly, you addressed it.

  34. Dana
    June 21st, 2014 @ 10:55 am

    I’d guess that the priesthood does attract homosexuals, but not for the reason — part of the power trip of being clergy — that you gave. Homosexuals who become priests know that homosexual activity is morally wrong and sinful, but are hoping that the Grace of God will enable them to be what God calls homosexuals to be: celibate. Sadly, for far too many of them, that isn’t enough.

    Part of the reason for that is the seminary, where these homosexuals who hope to be celibate wind up living with other homosexuals who hope to be celibate, and the temptation of proximity, the easy access, breaks down the barriers.

  35. David R. Graham
    June 21st, 2014 @ 11:05 am

    True.