BREAKING: Lady Gaga and SLDN will rally for DADT repeal in Portland, ME - targeting Collins & Snowe

This is BIG. Lady Gaga just tweeted:

Meet me in Portland, Maine 2moro, 9/20 to help repeal #DADT. I'm holding a Rally + speaking live in Deering Oaks Park http://bit.ly/cO4cY9

Yes, our truly fierce advocate is on her way to my hometown, Portland, Maine, to hold a rally with SLDN to push for the repeal of DADT. The targets are Maine's Republican Senators: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

The rally, called “For the 14,000”: A Rally for the 14,000+ Discharged" is tomorrow at 4:00 PM Eastern in Deering Oaks Park. For you tweeters, the hashtag is #4the14k.

This is very, very strategic on the part of SLDN and Lady Gaga.

Here's what SLDN's Aubrey Sarvis said, via press release:

The votes to break McCain’s filibuster are not there. We need Sens. Snowe and Collins on board; they’re key to us breaking the filibuster. With the vote less than 48 hours away, we need everyone supporting repeal to call the Senate. We’re bringing gay and straight service members to Portland to help make the case. And we’re proud to have the support of Lady Gaga to bring grassroots attention to repeal at a critical hour. Like Lady Gaga, all New England senators, indeed all 100 senators, Democrats and Republicans, need to engage in a real debate on this issue, and not just posture and spin this week over procedure and Senate rules.

So, that's the situation. It's dire.

As Aubrey notes, right now, we don't have the 60 votes to break the GOP filibuster of the Defense Authorization. Senator Susan Collins already voted for that very bill in the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 27, 2010. Collins is now playing partisan procedural games to rationalize her support for the filibuster. It's gross. Maine's other Senator, Olympia Snowe, should do the right thing, too. She is playing the same game.

The usual lobbying tactics aren't working. So, desperate times call for new and innovative tactics. And, this is one of the most sophisticated lobbying efforts I've seen in a long time.

They're taking the fight right to Collins and Snowe -- in a way that no other issue or group has. This event will be noticed in Maine. It's so much smarter than bringing another celebrity to DC, where political media is so cynical. Again, Gaga has over 6,390,000 followers on twitter. And, she's got over 18,255,000 fans on Facebook. No political organization in DC has anything that compares to that kind of outreach.

The 14,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers who have been discharged under DADT and the 60,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers still serving have been waiting 17 years for this vote. It's not a political or procedural game for them -- it's their lives and they're willing to put their lives on the line for the rest of us. And, the time is now.

Lady Gaga has been using her extensive bully pulpit to elevate the DADT repeal issue for the past several weeks. It's been very, very impressive. (Meanwhile, despite the impending vote and the GOP filibuster, President Obama has been largely silent on this issue, which, sadly, is not a surprise.)

This week, the action is in the Senate. Collins and Snowe are the targets. Now, they can't hide. They're going to have a very powerful spotlight on them, thanks to Lady Gaga and SLDN.

Maine is the best chance we have. If Collins and Snowe abandon the gay and lesbian servicemembers, it could be a long time before we get another vote.

I'll have more as events unfold...the next two days are going to be wild. Read More...

We have a fierce advocate. It's Lady Gaga, not Barack Obama

Kerry Eleveld's latest column provides an update on the impending Senate vote to end the GOP filibuster of the Defense bill, which contains the DADT language. It's not good. There's a standoff between the Democrats and Republicans. And, there's no sign that the White House is lobbying on behalf of DADT. Think about that. If this is such a priority for the White House, why haven't we heard a peep from Obama. The Republicans are filibustering a defense bill while we're fighting two wars. And, nothing.

But, there is one voice out there speaking out. And, she's speaking to many of those young people who elected Obama. It's Lady Gaga:

One would think the White House has a stake in making sure this legislative effort doesn’t die since they seem committed to defending the constitutionality of every antigay law on the books. Even more to the point, if the bill's defeated, President Obama is facing a 2012 election scenario in which his only legislative accomplishment for the LGBT community would be passing hate crimes. I wonder how many LGBT Americans would call that fierce.

Meanwhile, Lady Gaga has been a more visible force for DADT repeal than almost every politician in Washington combined. Trust me when I say that this reporter – who suffers from severe pop culture deficit – initially discounted her. But after having discharged soldiers escort her to the Video Music Awards, exchanging tweets with Reid’s office about the vote, tweeting an explanation of a filibuster and instructing her “little monsters” to call their senators, Lady Gaga penetrated my Beltway myopia.

The YouTube video she posted Thursday advocating for repeal already has nearly a million views [NOTE: it's well over 1.2 million as of 8:00 a.m.], and yet not a single statement urging passage of the legislation from the White House.

At last year’s Human Rights Campaign dinner, which featured appearances by both President Obama and Lady Gaga, the president joked, “It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady Gaga.”

While Obama’s performance may have given Gaga a run for her money that night, he is clearly being upstaged by her now.

Last night, Lady Gaga tweeted a message about all the responses to her videos and tweets from the "lil Monsters":

To @SenJohnMcCain and everyone on Twitter I received an overwhelming amount of videos responding to DADT, please watch:http://bit.ly/cWAITv

Read More...