Logo held the Visible Vote 08 Presidential Forum last night - the major Democratic presidential candidates all came to discuss issues that apply to the LGBT crowd (none of the Republicans accepted the invitation… surprise surprise…). Here, I’ll respond to all the candidate’s interviews.

Obama: The first to go (order was based on who accepted their invitations first), Obama seemed a bit hesitant. All of the questions were very personal to the panelists and everyone watching, so Obama and others had to be very careful in what they said - a slip up in semantics could prove disastrous. He handled it well, though, relying heavily on the comparison between discrimination against African Americans and that against homosexuals.

Edwards: His answers weren’t as hesitant, but they all seemed very prepared, and at times unrelated to the questions. Also unlike Obama, he was very partisan. Where Obama was about cooperation between the parties with LGBT issues, Edwards time after time attacked the GOP. I may agree with his accusations, but he spent more time dissing them than saying how he was going to work across the party lines.

Kucinich: Everyone there loved Kucinich. He supports full same-sex marraige, sex education… Unfortunately, that pretty much makes him unelectable - but we still need someone like him to push the boundaries. Honestly, I believe that most of the other candidates agree with him on those issues, they just aren’t willing to sacrifice their electability to go that far publicly. But I think one of the reasons he seemed so much more conversational and comfortable up there than Obama and Edwards was that he didn’t have to hide anything. He said what he believed (so refreshing for liberal politicians).

Gravel: The only other major candidate that supports same-sex marriage, Gravel spoke very openly. Most of what he talked about centered around drugs (Melissa Etheridge, on of the panelists, was interested in his stance of medical marijuana). He wants to legalize marijuana and decriminalize hard drugs. Wow. I never thought I’d hear a [well, I suppose] major candidate say those words. Because it’s true: so many of the problems we associate with drugs (shootings, tainted batches, gangs) are a result of the war on drugs, not drugs themselves. Doesn’t mean I’d take them, but decriminalizing would do a lot more good than most politicians would like to admit.

Richardson: Seemed very mild coming after Kucinich and Gravel. Honestly, he didn’t seem that rounded on GLBT issues - seemed he was there more for straight-up publicity than getting the word out. Unfortunately for him, he was asked the dreaded question: “Is it a choice?” “Yes.” And with that, he lost any bit of the support the crowd still had for him. To bad…

Clinton: Oh, Hillary. Most of her time was spent dissing Bill. She was a lot more honestly than the others in some ways. For instance, she admitted that she supported Don’t Ask Don’t Tell when it first came out (the others all said they hated it from the beginning). But honestly, guys - it was a step in the right direction at the time. She wants to get rid of it now, as does everyone else. She seemed to be all about accomplishing what she thinks is possible at the time (actually fairly in line with my own philosophies). Her word choice on repercussions for people “committing same-sex relationships” was slightly rotten, however.

All in all, I thought the forum was well done. It was refreshing to see us gays have so much support from [some] politicians. Some of what a few of them said made me cringe a bit, but the fact that they were all there says a lot. I respect them for that.