Base or Albatross?

Interesting piece in today's NYT pondering this week's events in the panderfest known as the Democratic Presidential race. Nagourney gets some good quotes from Jim Carville about how the Democratic interest groups behave different from their GOP peers, such as this gem- "The Democratic interest groups are less concerned about winning the election and more concerned about drawing attention to themselves." Carville uses the example of how Bush never goes to the NRA, nor does the NRA require candidates to come before them and hold assualt rifles aloft. Contrast this with the ring kissing and orthodoxy thrust onto Democratic candidates thus far.
However, I do take exception to Nagourney's likening of the HRC insistence that candidates support gay marriage with the arm twisting of other liberal groups. There is a certain level of support for equal marriage rights outside of lefty salons and gay groups. Heck, there are even groups in the Republican column that support equal marriage rights, so it is not as though the HRC is forcing Democrats to embrace a position that is SO much further to the left than the general population is willing to go. Of course, regular readers will note my own bias on this issue, but I do think that equal marriage rights is not the sort of wedge issue people make it out to be.