The NYT has a good article today on how the Mormons simply out-organized their opponents -- and how very close they came to losing. It reinforces the idea that this could have been won. And it also tempers the idea that this was just one more typical defeat requiring an entirely revised strategy. It seems clear that without this unprecedented intervention by the Mormons, who spent $40 mln and put in thousands of people hours, Proposition 8 would have been handily voted down, just like people originally suspected. So there's an argument to be made that the original strategy has been cumulatively working, and this just a desparate last gasp by opponents -- that this is their best shot, and it barely stopped it, where our side has lots of room to improve.
Excerpts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html
<snip>
The California measure, Proposition 8, was to many Mormons a kind of
firewall to be held at all costs.
"California is a huge state, often seen as a bellwether -- this was
seen as a very, very important test," Mr. Otterson said.
<snip>
Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that
Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who
walked door-to-door in election precincts.
The canvass work could be exacting and highly detailed. Many Mormon
wards in California, not unlike Roman Catholic parishes, were assigned
two ZIP codes to cover. Volunteers in one ward, according to training
documents written by a Protect Marriage volunteer, obtained by people
opposed to Proposition 8 and shown to The New York Times, had tasks
ranging from "walkers," assigned to knock on doors; to "sellers," who
would work with undecided voters later on; and to "closers," who would
get people to the polls on Election Day.
Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact
indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church
volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would
restore the definition of marriage God intended.
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would
roll instead, emphasizing that Proposition 8 was about marriage, not
about attacking gay people, and about restoring into law an earlier ban
struck down by the State Supreme Court in May.
"It is not our goal in this campaign to attack the homosexual lifestyle
or to convince gays and lesbians that their behavior is wrong -- the
less we refer to homosexuality, the better," one of the ward training
documents said. "We are pro-marriage, not anti-gay."
Leaders were also acutely conscious of not crossing the line from being
a church-based volunteer effort to an actual political organization.
"No work will take place at the church, including no meeting there to
hand out precinct walking assignments so as to not even give the
appearance of politicking at the church," one of the documents said.
By mid-October, most independent polls showed support for the
proposition was growing, but it was still trailing. Opponents had
brought on new media consultants in the face of the slipping poll
numbers, but they were still effectively raising money, including $3.9
million at a star-studded fund-raiser held at the Beverly Hills home of
Ron Burkle, the supermarket billionaire and longtime Democratic
fund-raiser.
It was then that Mr. Schubert called his meeting in Sacramento. "I
said, 'As good as our stuff is, it can't withstand that kind of
funding,' " he recalled.
The response was a desperate e-mail message sent to 92,000 people who
had registered at the group's Web site declaring a "code blue" -- an
urgent plea for money to save traditional marriage from "cardiac
arrest." Mr. Schubert also sent an e-mail message to the three top
religious members of his executive committee, representing Catholics,
evangelicals and Mormons.
"I ask for your prayers that this e-mail will open the hearts and minds
of the faithful to make a further sacrifice of their funds at this
urgent moment so that God's precious gift of marriage is preserved," he
wrote.
On Oct. 28, Mr. Ashton, the grandson of the former Mormon president
David O. McKay, donated $1 million. Mr. Ashton, who made his fortune as
co-founder of the WordPerfect Corporation, said he was following his
personal beliefs and the direction of the church.
"I think it was just our realizing that we heard a number of stories
about members of the church who had worked long hours and lobbied long
and hard," he said in a telephone interview from Orem, Utah.
In the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly
$40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons.
Even with the Mormons' contributions and the strong support of other
religious groups, Proposition 8 strategists said they had taken pains
to distance themselves from what Mr. Flint called "more extreme
elements" opposed to rights for gay men and lesbians.
To that end, the group that put the issue on the ballot rebuffed
efforts by some groups to include a ban on domestic partnership rights,
which are granted in California. Mr. Schubert cautioned his side not to
stage protests and risk alienating voters when same-sex marriages began
being performed in June.
"We could not have this as a battle between people of faith and the
gays," Mr. Schubert said. "That was a losing formula."
<snip>
The "Yes" campaign was denounced by opponents as dishonest and
divisive, but the passage of Proposition 8 has led to second-guessing
about the "No" campaign, too, as well as talk about a possible ballot
measure to repeal the ban. Several legal challenges have been filed,
and the question of the legality of the same-sex marriages performed
from June to Election Day could also be settled in court.
For his part, Mr. Schubert said he is neither anti-gay -- his sister is
a lesbian -- nor happy that some same-sex couples' marriages are now in
question. But, he said, he has no regrets about his campaign.
"They had a lot going for them," Mr. Schubert said of his opponents.
"And they couldn't get it done."
<end excerpts>
Full at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html