Presidential Betting Lines In Flux After Obama’s Gay Marriage Approval

All this talk about how Mitt Romney would be able to beat Barack Obama without solid support from his own party might be a moot point. Romney might actually be able to just sit back and watch as Obama’s Presidential Betting Odds unravel all on their own.

Obama, favored by Bovada’s 2012 Presidential Futures Odds to win the election in November, hasn’t done a whole lot to secure himself as the front runner lately. His odds are actually going down after a bizaare week that saw him unable to fill a small college rally, and profess his approval of same sex marriage for the first time. He became the first President ever to give his approval, although Vice President Dick Chaney was a supporter during the George W. Bush administration.

The Democratic Party was a -220 favorite to win the election, according to Bovada’s 2012 Presidential Prop Betting page last week, with the Republicans gaining ground at +170. But those numbers are getting tighter, down to -200 and +180.

The issue at Ohio State’s rally is troubling but Obama’s gamble to support gay marriage could be disaterous come voting time. He had never outright supported it in the past, angering a section of his own liberal fan base who demanded he choose a side. And when he finally admitted to being comfortable with it this week on ABC, it still didn’t do much to win over his party.

To be clear, 52 percent of American’s polled by ABC are for gay marriage, and 43 are against meaning almost half the country will be against his policy no matter which he chose. But it seems his timing couldn’t have been worse, just six months from his critical election and a week after North Carolina’s Amendmant One vote to ban same sex marriage.

“That the president has chosen today, when LGBT Americans are mourning the passage of Amendment One, to finally speak up for marriage equality is offensive and callous,” R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans executive director, told ABC. “Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch. This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”