Hotsheet Live: Will Obama's same-sex marriage statement matter in November?
(CBS News) CBS News political director John Dickerson was joined on"Hotsheet Live" on Friday by The Washington Post's Aaron Blake, Roll Call's Shira Toeplitz and National Journal's Josh Kraushaar to discuss President Obama's recent announcement of his support for same-sex marriage.
"We know by now the president maybe was going to make this on his own before the election, but Joe Biden forced him to do it," said Dickerson.
"The president is a very risk averse politician," said Kraushaar. "When you look at the political impact of it, I think in the end it's a wash, but I think it's a very volatile wash."
"I think the economy is still the number one issue," said Toeplitz. "Josh called this a risky decision. I'm not quite sure how risky it was, because anyone who is so against gay marriage that it would change their mind on the president, I don't think they would have voted for him anyway."
"I think that Romney's response to this has been very interesting," said Blake. "He basically said this is my position, let's talk about something else now and I think that's a probably smart strategy because this isn't something so clearly in the Republican's favor right now."
Watch the entire show in the video above, in which the panel also discussed the potential fallout of reports about Mitt Romney's time in prep school.
Each guest concluded the show with their endorsements for the week, which you can check out below.
Aaron Blake endorsed Buzzfeed's "15 Genuinely Interesting Things About Rob Portman."
Shira Toeplitz endorsed the accompanying photo gallery to Jason Horowitz's Washington Post article about Romney. "It goes to show you that every one was awkward in middle school," said Toeplitz.
Josh Kraushaar endorsed the movie "A Guy Walks into a Bar" that will premiere tonight at the D.C. 48 Hour Film Festival.
Lastly, host John Dickerson endorsed Garry Winogrand's photographs from the 1960 Democratic National Convention in The New York Times.