Prop 8, $$ and the LDS Church video

[_solomarineris]

I don't buy your story but that's beside the point.
LDS Church won against humongous odds, they defeated gays & lesbians and liberals.
They repeated the sweet victory of ERA.
Postscript: In the process LDSPR screwed themselves in a big way. The damage the Brass caused to reach their goal will bring demise to their proselytizing efforts.

Mine is not a "story." I live in California. They were not disorganized. Anti-Prop 8 folks were highly organized and they and their supporters outspent Prop 8 by a huge margin. Weekend after weekend there were huge parties, rallies and fundraisers going on in West Los Angeles. I was there on the ground. I saw it. My clients, friends and partners were involved.

The local lawyer's newspaper ran a story on lawyers who supported and opposed Prop 8. They were hard-pressed to find a lawyer who supported Prop 8 who made the same sized contribution as the many lawyers who opposed Prop 8. They finally settled on one of my pro-Prop 8 partners for the story, and then the anti-Prop 8 coalition lobbied with my firm, successfully so, to squelch my partner's interview.

I spoke at the UCLA law school in support of Prop 8. I was the only lawyer among the dozen or so on the topic willing to support Prop 8. It was easy for the coalition to bring in an impressive array of anti-Prop 8 speakers. The anti-Prop 8 coalition, once again, lobbied with my firm to stop me from speaking, but I didn't back down and my firm's management committee let me go ahead.

The word of my visit spread quickly throughout West Los Angeles, and the lecture hall was stuffed with anti-Prop 8 students and activists.

Anti-Prop 8 fundraising came in large part from tax-exempt entities. In other words, people contributed to the entities, took a write off, and the entities then made the contribution to the anti-Prop 8 campaign. The list is very long of those organizations.

By contrast, there was almost none of that in the Pro-Prop 8 side. Contributions in large part came from after-tax dollars.

So, at least from my perspective, I would say that the anti-Prop 8 side was better organized at all levels except perhaps the lowest of the low grassroots level. And, there, humble Church members as well as many others from other faiths were willing to walk the neighborhoods for support.

You just aren't buying reality. I'm surprised, really, and I thought nothing would surprise me here.

I didn't even know you are living in CA. I believe your story now. All along I thought they were sittin on their laurels while Pro8 camp worked like ants.What's more mind mind boggling is that CA is not a redneck state like Texas I live. You guys have SF, LA, SD like cities and still lose this gig?
It's a better story than Bush's second term election.

[_EAllusion]

I think they got caught flatfooted in the sense they didn't know how to effectively respond to a very successful advertising campaign that, unfortunately, was quite scummy. But that's politics, especially religious right politics, and it is unforgivable not to have sound counters available quickly. There clearly was surprise when those ads were gaining traction. As a secondary matter, they could've much more effectively tapped into fund raising available to them, but that's easily true of both sides. There also wasn't much evidence of microtargeting younger african americans, which obviously should've been happening since that was the major persuadable hold out demographic.

[_The Nehor]

I suspect Prop 8 passed because Obama's candidacy got minorities to the ballot box. It was a tough campaign on both sides but the anti side did have more money and support from visible figures.

I didn't see anything scummier then the Mormons invading home ad and I watched a lot of the ads for both sides.

[_Scottie]

I didn't see anything scummier then the Mormons invading home ad and I watched a lot of the ads for both sides.

Yeah, that ad was pretty weak.

[_John Larsen]

I suspect Prop 8 passed because Obama's candidacy got minorities to the ballot box.

Explain this statement.

[_EAllusion]

I suspect Prop 8 passed because Obama's candidacy got minorities to the ballot box. It was a tough campaign on both sides but the anti side did have more money and support from visible figures.

I didn't see anything scummier then the Mormons invading home ad and I watched a lot of the ads for both sides.

I didn't see that one, but I'll take your word for it that it was quite scummy. The problem I saw is that the entire case built through advertising for prop 8 was based on quite dishonest narrative about its consequences. This ran relatively unchallenged for a period of time while it gained traction. It should've been immediately quashed with counter ad campaign along the lines of "Those bigots won't stop at nothing to discriminate against gays, including lying to you." That's what struck me as flatfooted.

As for prop 8 passing due to increased turnout among African Americans driven by the Obama campaign, this isn't born out by the data, mainly because a lot of the extra turnout Obama drove in that demographic was in new voters, which also happened to oppose prop-8, just barely, on balance. However, one of the ways no on prop 8 dropped the ball was by not driving up support among that demographic because that was an achievable goal.

[_Scottie]

I suspect that there was no small amount of hubris in the anti-8 camps. I don't think they dreamed that it would pass in one of the most, if not THE most, liberal states. That it was a silly, futile effort in the first place, so why even bother with counter ads?

Which is also why they threw ridiculous temper tantrums when they lost.

[_Yoda]

I suspect Prop 8 passed because Obama's candidacy got minorities to the ballot box.

Explain this statement.

I think I can. My African American friends who voted for Obama are Christian consevatives with traditional family values.

Just like Regan's era brought the term "Regan Democrat", I think Obama's term will bring about "Obama Republicans or Conservatives".

I have met many deeply religious people in the African American community, in particular, who are Democrats, but do not subscribe to many of the far left policies.

[_EAllusion]

By the way, when you take into account all of Obama's turnout increase, and not just look at one demographic, then it overwhelmingly helped. All the other relevant demographics Obama dominated in driving up turnout voted against prop 8 in huge margins. It's just that when you look at blacks exclusively and reasonable models of turnout increase attributable to Obama, there isn't quite enough there to get no on prop 8 through. Again, that's mainly because a lot of the extra came in the form of younger, new voters more open to voting against prop 8. Your more established black voters who likely would've voted anyway? Oh yeah. They voted yes on prop 8 hard. Black culture in America has a history of religious social conservatism and strong intolerance towards homosexuals. That wasn't hard to predict.

[_Seven]

I live in California, and the Mormons had a far superior organization to anything I saw coming from the "No on 8" side. I can only recall seeing one ad from the "no" side during the heat of the campaign and we were bombarded with phone calls, e-mails, videos and radio ads from the "yes" side. I never received one call from the "no on 8" people or an informative e-mail. The "yes" signs were all over the neighborhoods.

I live in a conservative county and many people I discussed the issue with were very influenced by the video and radio ads about schools being forced to teach children homosexual marriage and the field trip of the lesbian wedding.