HRC Endorses Obama for President. Why Now?

Yesterday, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT advocacy group, endorsed Barack Obama for President in 2012, making note of his accomplishments for the LGBT community.

Said HRC President Joe Solmonese: “President Obama has improved the lives of LGBT Americans more than any President in history.  In 2008 we were promised change and profound change is what we got.  More remains to be done and ensuring that President Obama is able to continue the forward momentum toward equality for another term is an absolute priority of the Human Rights Campaign.”

It's unclear why this early moment was chosen given that an endorsement might have been used down the road as a bargaining chip for something, at the very least a statement in support of marriage equality.

What they said:

Pam Spaulding writes:

Again, this illustrates that if HRC is on board, the assumption is that entire LGBT community is stepping in line by default. Is it "Groundhog Day", a case of waking up and starting the same day over and over with these folks? HRC no more controls the community than blogs do, as we've seen before, it's just that the institutions seek credibility through our Beltway orgs.

Also, what is the point of doing this now? I don't recall HRC endorsing in the primaries when it was Hillary vs. Obama, for instance. And how about Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger, is he a non-starter? It just seems odd for an allegedly non partisan org. 

John Aravosis at Americablog thinks this means we can forget about Obama coming out for marriage equality before the 2012 election:

While an eventual endorsement of Obama by HRC is inevitable, expected, and fine, there's a dance that's expected where both sides get something. And the expectation should be for gay rights advancements, not appearing at your dinner or giving you a job. (HRC may be the only folks in town worse at negotiating than the White House itself. ) But now that HRC has already given the President the prize he seeks, what incentive does the President, who claims he's "evolving" on marriage, evolve before the election? He has no need to. HRC clearly hasn't learned the lessons of the first two years of the Obama presidency.