Obama Campaign Pushes the Issue of Gay Marriage

In an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Obama on Wednesday, hours before the president confirmed his own support, Mr. Biden expressed regret for a statement endorsing same-sex marriage that went considerably further than the president’s views on the matter and scrambled the White House’s calculation for confronting the charged social issue.

As the president traveled to the West Coast on Thursday, where in Seattle he said Americans should have the chance to succeed “no matter who you love,” his presumptive challenger, Mitt Romney, and Republican leaders in Congress, tried, with limited success, to steer the focus of the presidential campaign back to the nation’s sluggish economy.

When Mr. Romney addressed hundreds of donors and other supporters at a pair of campaign stops in Nebraska, one of the nation’s most reliable Republican states, he steered clear of the topic of same-sex marriage, underscoring Republican caution over the shifting politics of the gay marriage debate. On Capitol Hill, Speaker John A. Boehner deflected questions about same-sex marriage, declaring: “The president can talk about it all he wants. I’m going to stay focused on what the American people want us to focus on, and that’s jobs.”

Many conservative advocacy groups displayed no such reticence to wade into the debate. These groups, which will play major roles in trying to motivate voters to the polls, see an opportunity to drive a wedge between Mr. Obama and religious voters, a group he made significant inroads with in 2008.

“Just when you thought the conservative movement couldn’t be any more energized against President Obama, he gives us another gift,” said David Bossie, president of the conservative advocacy group Citizens United. “Add it to the list of atrocities.”

The Obama campaign saw an opening to galvanize its backers as well. It released a new Web video that features Mr. Romney declaring his opposition to same-sex marriage and to some legal benefits for gay couples. Titled “Mitt Romney: Backwards on Equality,” the video accuses Mr. Romney of wanting to “deny rights” and notes that “even President Bush supported civil unions.”

While Mr. Obama only alluded to same-sex marriage in his initial appearances in Seattle, he had evidently struck a chord with some residents there.  “Thank You! Mr. President for standing up for my Mommys!” read a hand-written sign held by a woman with an infant as Mr. Obama’s motorcade passed en route to a fund-raiser.

Still, the internal White House tension over Mr. Biden’s comments threatened to distract from the presidential endorsement that was seen as overdue in some circles of the gay and Democratic communities.

In an interview with ABC News that aired Thursday morning, Mr. Obama said the vice president had gotten “a little bit over his skis.” But he said that he had done so “out of generosity of spirit.” And in their Oval Office meeting on Wednesday, the president told Mr. Biden, “I understand you were speaking from the heart,” according to a person briefed on the exchange.

While the president bears Mr. Biden no ill will, several officials said, the episode enraged Mr. Obama’s senior political advisers and complicated the White House’s efforts to reap political dividends from the president’s declaration through a campaign e-mail, a video and a three-state fund-raising swing by Mr. Obama.

It was easily the biggest instance of crossed wires between the garrulous vice president and his more buttoned-down boss, in a White House that has been marked by occasional eruptions from Mr. Biden. And the effect was magnified both because it involved a divisive social issue and because it came just as the general election is heating up.

People who know both men said they did not believe that Mr. Biden had an ulterior motive in pre-empting the president, despite the fact that he has not ruled out running for president himself in 2016.

Indeed, several gay-rights activists said whatever affection Mr. Biden’s candor might have won him with gay voters, he would still lag behind other potential Democratic candidates, like Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, both seen as champions of gay rights.

Mr. Biden has said nothing publicly since his remarks on the NBC program “Meet the Press.” But he told staff members at the White House that he regretted putting the president in an awkward spot, several officials said.

“The president has been the leader on this issue from Day 1, and the vice president never intended to distract from that,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Biden, Kendra Barkoff, said in a statement.

A high-level campaign official called Mr. Biden’s comments as bad a mistake as he has made in a long time — arguably since October 2008, when he “guaranteed” at a Seattle fund-raiser that Mr. Obama would face an international crisis within six months of taking office. (“I think Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes,” Mr. Obama said at the time.)

This time, too, the president offered a modulated criticism. “Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without, I think, there being a lot of notice to everybody?” he said on ABC. “Sure. But all’s well that ends well.”

The last 48 hours have been a heady period for Mr. Biden, according to people close to him. He has heard from many people — especially gay-rights advocates — that he is a hero who nudged a reluctant president on an issue of historic resonance.

“There is no dancing in Delaware,” said former Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, referring to Mr. Biden’s penchant for bluntness bred in a home state known for its tradition of not dancing around issues.

On the other hand, Mr. Biden upended a plan by Mr. Obama’s political brain trust to follow up last Saturday’s campaign rallies with a $25-million advertising purchase in nine battleground states to promote the administration’s accomplishments.

“My view has always been that everybody’s strength is also their weakness,” said David Axelrod, a senior strategist. “I don’t think it’s terribly consequential.”

Despite the White House friction, by Thursday there were signs that Mr. Obama’s comments had compelled a number of liberal donors, who had previously remained on the sidelines, to open their wallets.

Juan Ahonen-Jover, a former technology executive, and his partner, Ken Ahonen-Jover, a doctor, donated a combined $10,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaign within minutes of learning that the president had changed course on gay marriage, pulling off the road on their way to Key West, Fla., to find an Internet cafe where they could make the contribution.

On the Republican side, conservative political strategists do not envision their base flocking to the polls based on this issue alone — nothing like the effect in 2004 when voters in 11 states put initiatives to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot. But at the margins — especially in battleground states with large evangelical Christian populations, like Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — they said that they believed that the president’s position could alienate some of the religious voters he won in 2008.

Some conservative groups said they were already making plans to use marriage as part of their outreach efforts. The Faith and Freedom Coalition, the social conservative political organization led by Ralph Reed, said Thursday that it planned to include the president’s comments in its campaign to rally conservatives.

But in a half-dozen interviews with Republicans who came to see Mr. Romney in Omaha on Thursday, not a single person voiced an objection at his decision not to dwell on the issue of same-sex marriage. “It’s none of my business. We don’t need to talk about it,” said Mo Birkel, 70, a retired custodian from nearby Papillion, Neb., when asked about gay marriage. “I can’t say if I’m for it or against it, because I don’t know what my grandkids will be.”