Earlier today Dan Walters repeated the canard that Obama brought new voters to the polls who voted for Prop 8, providing its margin of victory:

Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure’s margin of victory.

To put it another way, had Obama not been so popular and had voter turnout been more traditional – meaning the proportion of white voters had been higher – chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failed.

That brought out Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com to bust this particular myth:

But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters — the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) — voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.

Now, it’s true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance — they were helpful on balance. If California’s electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.

That’s the first point we all need to internalize and repeat often – Obama brought out a more progressive electorate that improved on the 2004 numbers and made Prop 8 a closer battle than it might otherwise have been. And while Prop 8’s passage is a catastrophe no matter the margin of its victory, closer is better as we lay the groundwork for a repeal vote.

The second key point is Obama brought out a younger electorate, and that voters under 30 were strongly against Prop 8 – regardless of racial identification:

Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8’s passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as ‘new’ voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren’t fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

At the end of the day, Prop 8’s passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

Perhaps what’s needed over the next few years is a California version of The Great Schlep – younger Californians, no matter the community in which they live or identify, ought to do all they can to convince their family members to not vote against marriage rights.

Even if that particular strategy isn’t used, Nate Silver’s analysis shows that the effort to turn Prop 8 into another opportunity to divide us on racial lines and to scapegoat African Americans is missing the point rather dramatically.

There’s a lot of anger over Prop. 8, and the gay/lesbian community seems engaged and passionate in a way I don’t recall in recent years.  In my case, while I was out working for Obama and healthcare activism, I came back to California to find my marriage had been undermined and my children been attacked by a public campaign bankrolled by religious partisans.

The good news is an engaged and enraged California gay/lesbian community has significant political potential and resources that have never been fully realized, and that will make the fight to overturn Prop. 8 the fight of our lives.  This is going to be our generation’s Briggs/Milk moment, and we’ll never stop fighting till we win it.

I am wondering if there is a general sense of agreement over the following ideas:

1. The LGBT community should work as one to overturn Prop. 8 at the earliest possible moment (presumably June 2010).

2. We need to make one-on-one voter contact and field work the heart of our efforts.  There is a general sense that the No on 8 campaign abandoned field work; at the end of the day, though, the campaign’s poor decisions were amplified by a lack of commitment among the gay/lesbian community, which was pre-occupied by Obama and a false belief that the voices of angels would prevail for the No on 8 campaign.  The field work should be organized both online and off, and the campaign should be expected to translate incredible volunteer energy into cutting-edge work.  The messages should revolve around civil rights and protecting gay/lesbian families.

3.  The incredible story of how President Thomas B. Monson led the out-of-state, out-of-touch Mormon Church to try to impose their Utah values on California, ripping apart 20,000 California families should be a central part of our narrative.  It is an amazing national hate crime perpetuated by a Church hoping to impose it’s religious values as public policy.

4.  This will end up one of the dominant stories of 2009-10, the gay/lesbians will run an incredible campaign, and we will win a difficult and heart-rendering battle.

Is there general agreement on this approach?

And how can we run the quality of campaign we need to?

Don’t get me wrong, these comments are the right ones that should be made by the Governor of California:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today expressed hope that the California Supreme Court would overturn Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage. He also predicted that the 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who have already married would not be affected by the initiative.

“It’s unfortunate, obviously, but it’s not the end,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview on CNN this morning. “I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area.”…

Today, Schwarzenegger urged backers of gay marriage to follow the lesson he learned as a bodybuilder trying to lift weights that were too heavy for him at first. “I learned that you should never ever give up…. They should never give up. They should be on it and on it until they get it done.“

This is precisely the message that needs to be delivered to California. Prop 8 was unfortunate, and it must be reversed, and we will not give up until it is.

If the repeal vote comes up in 2010, while Arnold is still governor, then he ought to repeat these comments and speak out for equal rights. Of course…he should have done that this year.

These comments do beg the question of where Arnold was these last few months on Prop 8. Even if the No on 8 campaign did not solicit him to cut an ad (and I don’t know if they did nor not) Arnold ought to have spoken up himself and explained why it would be “unfortunate” to take away marriage rights. Arnold still has a lot of pull and credibility with swing voters in California, and in parts of red California. He should have spoken up sooner.

Still, this is the right framing, and helps build the narrative that Prop 8’s passage is a Bad Thing for California and something that needs to be reversed.

The idea that if African-Americans (AA) voted like the white vote, then 8 would have failed is not true. I took a look at the CNN exit polls and the election numbers and here is what I have so far:

10,328,365 voted for the proposition

5,419,478 for

4,908,887 against

If going by the exit poll, 10% AA, then 1,032,837 AA voted

at 70% yes, 722,986

at 30% no, 309,851

without the AA from the final, it is

4,696,492 yes

4,599,036 no

so 8 would have won anyways and shows that the Latino 53% yes vote would have tipped the yes vote.

If AA voted at 49% yes like white voters

4,696,492 + 506,090 = 5,202,582 yes

4,599,036 + 526,747 = 5,125,783 no

Prop 8 would have still passed.

If AA voted at 2004 levels, 6%, and using the 2008 ratio,

433,791 yes

185,911 no

4,696,492 + 433,791 = 5,130,283

4,599,036 + 185,911 = 4,784,947

difference = 345,336

Prop 8 would have still passed even without the Obama bounce.

I just want to squelch the idea that AA was the main reason 8 passed. I am afraid when we run this again that all the focus will be put on AA community when there are better areas, e.g., single women, married women with and without children, etc. In fact, it would probably be better if the Gay community started an outreach program in the suburbs of just normal community building: Little League, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, tutoring…polls show familiarity increases acceptance.

I am proud to work for the Courage Campaign

The more I look at the passage of Prop 8 and the reaction to it – the outpouring of anger, the determination to not let this stand – the more I realize that we have been here before.

In 1963 the state legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, outlawing racial discrimination in the sale or rental of property. Housing segregation was one of the main targets of the Civil Rights Movement and the Rumford Act was a major victory.

But it also provoked a conservative reaction. In 1964 the California Real Estate Association put Proposition 14 on the ballot, a constitutional amendment repealing the open housing law. A former actor named Ronald Reagan launched his political career serving as the spokesman for the campaign, especially in TV ads. Despite a major mobilization against Prop 14 – leading to, among other things, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement – Prop 14 passed by a 2-1 margin in November 1964.

It was a bitter blow to the California civil rights movement. The anger it provoked was so intense it led to the Watts Riots the following summer. But the main reaction among the California civil rights movement was to organize. By 1970 activists had forced the Democratic Party in CA and in DC to embrace open housing and enshrined it in law as soon as Prop 14 was overturned by the US Supreme Court.

Many Californians are asking us “what now?” The protests we have seen are the beginnings of a new civil rights movement – the marriage equality movement – but we need a grassroots movement to make this movement grow and succeed. And to do that we need a goal. A court case doesn’t sustain activist energies – something the civil rights Movement, which was organized long before Brown v. Board or Reitman v. Mulkey and achieved its main successes by mounting the most effective and important grassroots movement in our history, understood quite well.

The goal, then, ought to be a repeal of Prop 8. We can and must do the groundwork, field organizing, and outreach to block by block reverse this defeat and show Californians the importance of restoring equal rights – exactly as the civil rights movement did 40 years ago.

The birth of a new Marriage Equality Movement — the civil rights movement of the 21st Century — is unfolding before our eyes.

Movements are visceral and popular, often borne of outrage and anger. What we are witnessing on the streets and online is a community of people who have come together to say: “These are our lives. This is our time. This is unacceptable.” Organized from the bottom-up by thousands of ordinary people in the last 48 hours, this people-powered phenomenon is exponentially growing by the minute, online and offline.

This is our moment to stand strong together — gay and straight — and say that we refuse to accept a California where discrimination is enshrined in our state constitution. Please show your support by pledging to support our campaign to repeal Prop 8 and restore marriage equality to California.

Our email to our members is over the flip.

“Not everyone was as jubilant about the gains for marriage as (the) Family Research Council and our supporters. This morning, FOX News posted photo after photo of the anti-family rioting in Los Angeles…” — Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, a powerful right-wing religious think tank that helped lead the campaign to pass Proposition 8.

Dear Robert,

“Anti-family rioting.”

That is how the religious extremists behind Prop 8 are characterizing the protests that have spread across California in the aftermath of Tuesday’s passage of the ballot measure that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry.

I was at the heart of one of these amazing marches in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. And it was anything but “anti-family rioting.”

It was history in the making — thousands of passionate Americans spontaneously speaking out against enshrining discrimination into the California state constitution.

We are witnessing the birth of a new Marriage Equality Movement — the civil rights movement of the 21st Century. Organized from the bottom-up by thousands of ordinary people just like you in the last 48 hours, this people-powered phenomenon is exponentially growing by the minute, online and offline.

You are at ground zero in this movement. And we need to take it to the next level — a new initiative campaign to repeal Prop 8 and restore marriage equality to California. Please pledge your support now to repeal Prop 8 — then forward this message to your friends:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

California had the chance to do what no other state has done and uphold equality for all. Instead, a slim majority decided to strip fundamental human rights from a minority. As Jonathan Stein writes at Mother Jones:

“The decision violates, violently, the image of my state that I have held with such pride my entire life. California is a wonderful place for a lot of reasons, but foremost among them is the way in which it welcomes people.”

Movements are visceral and popular, often borne of outrage and anger. What we are witnessing on the streets and online is a community of people who have come together to say: “These are our lives. This is our time. This is unacceptable.”

This is our moment to stand strong together — gay and straight — and say that we refuse to accept a California that enshrines bigotry into our state constitution. Please pledge your support now to repeal Prop 8 and restore marriage equality to California — then forward this message to your friends:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

Thank you for mobilizing your friends to fight the religious right and restore marriage equality to California.

Rick Jacobs

Chair

P.S. My friends Zach Shepard and Geoffrey Murry helped spark Wednesday and Thursday night’s marches in Los Angeles, activating their social networks via email and Facebook. These two young lawyers have never led a protest in their lives, but they decided to take matters into their own hands, along with thousands of other concerned citizens shocked at the passage of Prop 8.

Like Zach and Geoffrey, you can help build California’s new Marriage Equality Movement today by taking action in your own community. Will you start by pledging your support to repeal Prop 8 and then forward this message to your friends?

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

As far as we can tell, it’s not so much that the “Yes-On-8” campaign won, but the “No-On-8” campaign lost. They lost because they confused swing voters with their inconsistent message, spent all their money on TV ads rather than street-level organizing (“ground game”) and instead of trying to win an election they went into “activist” mode and declared war on religion.

The Message Problem

President-Elect Obama’s campaign message was simple, memorable, and completely effective, because it was completely true: “John McCain voted with George W. Bush over 90% of the time.  John McCain is four more years of George W. Bush.”

The No-On-8 campaign had three messages: 1) Prop 8 strips people of civil rights that were already granted to them, 2) Gays and lesbians deserve equal rights, 3) Same Sex marriage will not be taught in schools.

Message #2 is far too divisive and played into the Yes-On-8s assertion that same-sex marriage was part of a “vast gay conspiracy.”  Message #3 was a defensive move on an issue that turned out to be a red herring (turns out only 23% of voters were worried about the effect same sex marriage would have on education).

This means that the winning message, not only by elimination but because it was the best message, is #1 – the civil rights argument.   It should have been the only message, especially since it requires a bit more explaining than most broad, talking-point-ready campaign themes.

To effectively push the civil rights argument, the opposition campaign needed to explain to voters that there’s a difference between approving of gay marriage and stripping someone of their civil rights that have already been upheld by the state.  No-On-8 made this argument well at first.  The first TV ads, funded by the official No-On-8 campaign employed this strategy.

The problem was that those ads were running against ads put by a group called “Equality California”, which had the same top-level leadership as “No-On-8” but employed different strategists (which still makes no sense to us, can someone explain the thinking behind this?).  Equality California also had a different message. Their ads did away with the civil rights argument in favor of a “gay and lesbian rights” argument.  This confused matters.  

There were now two messages out there:  One that said that No-On-8 is not about same-sex marriage but about civil rights, the other said that No-On-8 is about same-sex marriage in that gays and lesbians deserved equality in marriage.   This was the beginning of the end.

The wheels really fell off when the Yes-On-8ers started their “same sex marriage taught in schools” campaign; this lead to the No-On-8 campaign running counter-ads and counter-PR on the education issue.  But the Equality California group was still talking about “gay and lesbian equal rights for marriage” and running those ads.

Now there were three messages: 1)” No-On-8 is not about gay marriage, it’s about protecting a minority groups’ civil rights.”  2) “No-on-8 is about gay marriage, because it’s about equality for same-sex couples.”  3) “Don’t worry, we won’t teach your kids about same-sex marriage in schools.”

This problem was compounded by Barack Obama’s gift to the Yes-On-8 campaign:  His repeated statements that he believes that “marriage is between a man and a woman.”  With his opposition to same-sex marriage bans excised from his statements, the message to voters, especially to African-Americans got even more muddled (as we discussed in a recent post about a Yes-On-8  Obama mailer targeted to African-Americans).

Why weren’t the No-On-8 campaign and Equality California working together to send out a unified message?  Somebody needed to bring these groups together and get them in line with one consistent theme. When the Yes-On-8 started their “education argument”, both coalitions should have worked together to put an internal poll in the field and figure out whether the argument was getting any traction.  Perhaps they would have found out much sooner than the Friday before the election that nobody really cared.

So where was the leadership?  Or as we like to ask around here lately, where was the California Democratic Party?

The CalDem Problem

As with Prop. 5, the California Democratic Party did not have their act together on Prop. 8. But with Prop. 8 their inconsistencies were a bit more understandable. The CalDems endorsed a “No” vote, and some surrogates like Mayor Villaraigosa, Mayor Newsom (who probably hurt more than helped), and Sen. Di-Fi spoke out against Prop. 8.  The problem was that all three said that Prop. 8 was about gay marriage and about civil rights.

Then there was the problem of bad timing.  The CalDems had much bigger fish to fry this election than Prop. 8.  The CalDems main priority was registering African-American and Latino voters and making sure they showed up to vote for President-Elect Obama.

It doesn’t take a sociologist to know that the African-American and Latino communities are pre-disposed to vote “Yes” on Prop. 8 (which, indeed, they did – 70% of African-American voters and 53% of Latinos voted “Yes”).   Perhaps the CalDems, understandably,  didn’t want to risk alienating  African-American and Latino voters by aggressively pushing the No-On-8 message.

Unfortunately for both No-On-8 Campaign and Equality California, they were left to their own devices without much support from the state party infrastructure.

Working With Rather Than Against Religion



From the beginning, those on the fringes of the No-on-8 campaign wanted to use the issue as an attack on religions that preached a “Yes-On-8” message.   We can’t tell you how many times we personally saw and how many other tales we heard about people standing outside of churches with No-On-8 signs. If you live in one of the state’s bigger cities, you probably saw this yourself.

Who at the No-On-8 campaign let people get away with this?  This is an election, not a political protest.  This sort of nonsense makes “soft yes” voters dig their heels in harder and completely turned off swing voters. Then there was the problem with the  No-On-8s campaigns war against the Mormons in the final weeks of the campaign.

These are only two examples of No-On-8s perceived “war against religion” in the final weeks of the campaign.  This whole strategy was mind-blowing to us.  Why wasn’t the first strategy of the opposition campaign to work with religious leaders at the community, local and national level who were already No-On-8.  This should have been a centerpiece of the campaign rather than the afterthought that it felt like.

Why not mobilize sympathetic church members to work within their own communities to work the civil rights issue and help get out the vote?  Harassing parishioners leaving Mass or smearing the entire LDS church makes it impossible for No-On-8 church members to work with the campaign, and in fact it may be enough to change some “No” votes to “Yes.”

The”Soft Yes” Problem and Lack of Ground Troops

The failure of the No-On-8 campaign to work with religious groups speaks to a larger problem, their complete lack of “ground game” (geez, we’re sick of that term! Hopefully that’s the last time we’ll use it for awhile!!).  The No-On-8 campaign failed to identify pockets of “Soft Yes” voters. San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, as well as many counties in the San Joaquin Valley and Central California all overwhelmingly both for Obama and for Prop. 8.  If there was a real ground effort in place and truly organized at the community level, Obama voters who were “Soft Yes” on 8 could have been identified and reached.

Anyway, it’s all over now.   The lawsuits have already started flying, which I’m sure we’ll talk about at some point.  Otherwise, the No-On-8ers can try to get it right in a couple of years.

If you live in California, and hell… even if you don’t, it’s no surprise that this remarkable history changing victory of President Barack Obama (damn! that feels good to type) has been soured somewhat.

It’s been soured because of a little something called Proposition 8.

It’s amazing so much hate and injustice can be squeezed into a word and a number.

Yet again California was subjected to the whims of millions of dollars of propaganda designed to sow divisions and emphasize the “otherness” of anybody that is not a straight heterosexual churchgoing white family.

It’s intolerence plain and simple.

And it got written into the constitution because we fell asleep at the wheel.

Look at this picture:

Look at these sanctimonious hate breeding fucks.

That’s from the LA times at the Yes on 8 Victory party.

All of that out of state Mormon money at work.

Are you pissed off?

Good.

What, you thought this was going to be easy?

Well don’t worry, because I have some ideas here:

this is a great article about what went wrong, it shows the dangers of reactive politics. I’m going to spend a bit of time with my take on things before moving on to the good stuff.

See, what happened, in essence is that “our side” decided… YET AGAIN, that if we just present a fact based argument that people will listen to reason.

That’s cute, don’t get me wrong.

It’s not the way the world works.

The Yes on 8 folks did many things right, they made appeals to peoples sense of family… yes capitalizing on many peoples secret fear of “teh gay” sure, but they also effectively lied about marriage being taught to kids in school.

Let me repeat that, they said

Why did this succeed?

Well first off because being a parent is hard, the world is changing, times are tough… parents often feel like they have no control over what their children are learning.

This reinforces the secret fear they have and amplifies into something else.

It turns it from a discussion about different types of people to advocacy and, the underlying threat is recruitment, for something they don’t believe it.

This doesn’t make any sense factually, but it’s not meant to.

It’s the “other” trying to ruin the sanctity of marriage.

(please hold off all comments about this too btw, I know it’s fucking retarded)

Why does the right always throw in stuff about “hard work”? It’s because the “other” doesn’t work and is freeloading off of their tax dollars.

That is the frame and the facts bounce right off it.

ok, are we clear about that? They lied effectively, and our side got distracted with (admittedly) big things.

Also, whether it was because people thought it was a done deal and just wanted to party, or that the presidential race was called early or what, but these are numbers for San Francisco

Department of Elections

Registration                         477,651 	  
Total Ballots Cast                   241,090    50.47 %
 Election Day Reporting               191,962 	  
Vote by Mail / Absentee Reporting     49,128

That turnout frankly… sucks… it’s down 24% from 2004.

Guess what, that’s lower than 1996.

Granted provisionals are still being counted and whay not, but this is not so good.

However, let’s not focus on that.

Because now we talk about what we need to do next.

You ready for this?

I’ve seen a lot of stuff going around, the most amusing of which to me is this petition

That is really cute and all, but what the 91,000 people who signed it don’t seem to realize is you can’t “reopen” a proposition. Won’t happen, can’t happen.

That’s not even in the Governor’s power to control even if he would.

Quite franly it’s a waste of time, and the small feeling you may have at feeling you’ve done something is misguided because it will accomplish nothing.

There is one way to fight this, and not only fight this injustice but kneecap these hateful bigots who think that because they have a few million they can throw around, they can fool normally good people into buying their agenda.

It’s a multiered agenda but it goes as follows:

Why play a reactive game? Why sit around and gnash our teeth, palms sweating and such waiting for the next attack.

The time to strike is now, while people are fully energized, when people are hurt and angry, but know that we can accomplish great things.

We write OUR OWN proposition, this one guarantees equal rights to all.

I’ve been frustrated with the Gay Marriage fight, because it turned into Civil Unions vs. Marriage and what is marriage.

This has nothing to do with that, this is about equal rights! Do you think all of the African American familes that were scared into voting yes on this because they didn’t want “gay marriage taught to their children”, are going to vote against equal rights?

NO! Not a chance, we need to get aggressive with our phrasing. No more passive mealy mouthed “definitions of marriage” etc. This isn’t about marriage, What is the argument against equal rights? There is none. Period.

We write another proposition requiring that a 2/3 majority to change the state constitution for anything.

One of the things the California Republican Party did in a “from hate’s heart I stab at thee” last ditch was establish a 2/3 majority for approving many important things.

That is why we have a highly paid legislature that can’t do a god damn thing and you end up with plumbers and hot dog vendors trying to figure out which bond measure makes the most sense for the state.

That is lame in and of itself, but imagine if that same level of difficulty was required to amend the state constitution?

a 2/3 majority is almost a complete safeguard over temporary populist uprisings stirred up my misleading ads.

And if you think about it, the US constitution needs a hell of a lot more to be amended.

Then we write yet ANOTHER proposition to reform the California Proposition Process so that signature collectors cannot be paid.

That may sound harsh, but it would ensure that people with millions of dollars to blow can’t foist their beliefs on others and have more legislation by the ballot box. Unpaid signature collectors would still represent actual ideas with popular support.

If signature collectors were not paid, this ballot would have never had this propostion, period… this is also true of the most odious stuff out there we’ve voted on the last few years.

I’m going to spearhead this the best I can in the time I have available and with the resources I have.

I’ve written policy position papers before, but i’m still researching the logistics for writing an actual proposition.

We have a long way to go for equal rights, but the battle begins anew today, and this is a battle that we WILL win.

Writing out a ballot proposition is an obnoxious and time consuming task, but I will commit to this, and to finding as much talent as possible to make this ironclad, but that in and of itself is not enough.

CAN I COUNT ON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR THIS IMPORTANT CAUSE AND GIVE EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THIS ON THE NEXT CA STATEWIDE BALLOT?

We have not time to mess around here, if this is something you truly believe in, we need to make this happen.

I want a commitment from you RIGHT NOW that you will do this, no equivacation, no prefacing statements.

And to paraphrase our new president elect:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, we have our answer…

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we cant, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

YES WE CAN.

Mount up people, we have some work to do.

-C.

X’posted all over the damn place, please feel free to forward and do the same.