A consensus: among consultants Wait until 2012 To Repeal Prop 8

he advice is piling up on one side for folks who want to see same sex marriage legalized in California: Wait until 2012 to ask voters to overturn Proposition 8.

We’ve told you about the three LGBT coalitions of color who suggested waiting, and the nation’s oldest LGBT Democratic club saying the same. Now some of California’s top political consultants are joining the chorus.

Now, now. We know that some gay marriage fans blame consultants for the ruinous anti-Prop 8 campaign. But Equality California marriage director Marc Solomon — who helped lead the successful drive for marriage in Massachusetts — asked seven to share their thoughts on the 2010 v. 2012 question. Plus, they asked what the LGBT community and their allies should do to prepare to go back to the ballot. Three were openly LGBT (including two who are married) and one is a Republican.

The consensus: Wait until 2012.

Sue Burnside, co-chair of the National Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund Campaign Board, is “convinced that we should refrain from rushing in 2010, and instead to build on grassroots passion and strategically prepare for a ‘Yes on Marriage Equality’ referendum in 2012.” Ditto for Mark Armour and Rick Claussen suggests “a multi-year campaign that culminates in an election when the time is right.”

“If you do UNSUCCESSFULLY undertake this issue at the ballot in 2010, this will further erode public support on the issue and make it harder for future efforts to succeed,” Claussen said.

Even though Democratic consultant Richie Ross — who has won a bazillion races in California going back a few decades — doesn’t offer a definitive suggestion, he presents a raw numbers breakdown that suggests that by 2012 there will be more young voters on the rolls (likely to vote for gay marriage) and more older voters (likely to oppose) dying off.

Dave Fleischer, who has worked on many gay-related ballot measures over the years, worries about money. Each side on the Prop 8 battle raised at least $40 million. “The most conventional path to victory employed by a wide variety of campaign strategists — bury your opposition by dramatically outspending them, effectively drowning out their message — isn’t an option when the opposition is as well-funded as ours is in California.” He worries that the 66 weeks until Nov 2010 “is a very brief time to raise $40-50 million.”

Plus, he worries if “our strategy, in a lower turnout year, (can) insure that those who voted withus in 2008 return to the polls in greater numbers than those who voted against us? We can certainly try. But we have to acknowledge that this would be very difficult. Key blocs of our supporters, such as younger voters, often turn out to vote in reduced numbers in off-years.”

Former Los Angeles Times pollster Jill Darling said “Did the 2008 campaign move voters? Are the post-elections efforts having any effect? Nothing measurable, as of May.”

See The consensus: Wait until 2012.

San Francisco Chronicle

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Deb Price: More Republicans embrace gay equality

Rumblings of change are beginning to be heard from deep inside the Republican Party.

The gay Log Cabin Republicans’ recent national convention offered a tantalizing peek at a possible not-so-distant future when the Republican Party has finally — and firmly — turned the corner and embraced equality for gay Americans.

Marquee speakers were Steve Schmidt, former senior campaign strategist for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, a founder of the moderate Republican Leadership Council.

Representing the youth vote that will determine the GOP’s fate was Meghan McCain, 24-year-old daughter of Sen. McCain and a contributor at TheDailyBeast.com.

Each supports marriage for same-sex couples.

That puts them firmly in the minority of today’s Republicans, but definitely not of future Republicans if the party is to grow, appeal to young voters, and be competitive beyond the south.

“We were crushed by the Obama campaign with voters under 30,” Schmidt pointed out.

What distinguishes the youth vote, he continued, is “a greater acceptance of people who find happiness in relationships with members of the same sex.” One day, a majority of Americans will follow, and, he added, “sooner or later the Republican Party will catch up.”

Whitman, tackling the problem of broadening the party without scaring away social conservatives, said, “It’s not about saying to the Christian conservatives, ‘There is no place for you.’ It’s about saying, ‘Would you please stop saying there’s no place for us?’”

Afterward, Whitman told me, “It’s not going to threaten my marriage to have a gay couple marry.” She wants the issue out of the party platform.

Meghan McCain was blunter: “Republicans’ using Twitter and Facebook isn’t going to miraculously make people think we’re cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don’t divide our nation further will.”

It’d be easy to dismiss the trio of speakers as preaching to choir, but encouraging rumblings are coming from elsewhere as well:

Gay Republicans point with pride to the fact that eight Republicans in the Vermont Legislature helped override the governor’s veto of gay marriage.

Meanwhile, gay Iowans are set to begin marrying on Monday, thanks to a ruling written by a Republican appointee. A University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll conducted just before the April 3 unanimous Iowa Supreme Court ruling for gay marriage found that 58 percent of Iowans aged 18 to 29 favor gay marriage, 17 percent prefer civil unions, and only 16 percent oppose both.

That means fewer than one out of five favors the official Republican position.

Contrast that with Iowans 65 or older: 18 percent favor gay marriage, 31 percent civil unions and 42 percent neither.

If you were running a company that hopes to still be around in 20 years, which customers would you appeal to?

That question is being asked in elite Republican circles. In a survey of its Republican political insiders, National Journal magazine found in its most recent issue that only 50 percent think their party should oppose gay marriage, while 8 percent think the party should embrace it and 37 percent say it should steer clear of the issue.

Speaking freely behind the cloak of anonymity, one Republican insider said, “Perception of complete hostility to all gay rights is killing the GOP among voters under 29. Evolve or perish, Republicans.”

A growing number of Republican thinkers are concluding that their party’s future hinges on finding a way to comfortably embrace gay rights.

Reach Deb Price at dprice@detnews.com or (202) 662-8736

See More Republicans embrace gay equality

The Detroit News

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Senior GOP Consultant Backs Gay Marriage Washington Post

Steve Schmidt, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, today laid out the case for gay marriage, warning that the GOP will continue to lose young voters and the Northeast as long the party opposes it.

At a meeting in Washington of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights GOP group, Schmidt dismissed conservative arguments that allowing gay marriage would weaken the institution, as well as objections from religious conservatives, warning that they could turn the Republican Party into a “sectarian” party.

“For the party to be seen as an antigay, that is injurious to its candidates in places like California and Washington and New York,” Schmidt said.

He called heterosexual marriage “a tradition,”not a “creed.”

See Senior GOP Consultant Backs Gay Marriage Washington Post

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Gay sex violence row hits Democrat

A group of young voters staged a demonstration outside the Democratic Party headquarters yesterday accusing it of abandoning same-sex couples to the scourge of domestic violence.

They claim they have been deceived by the party and that it has turned a blind eye to violence inflicted by parties involved in same- sex relationships after a prominent party member opposed an amendment to the Domestic Violence Ordinance that would offer gay couples equal protection under the law.

The protesters, mainly students and social workers, pasted a symbolic black paper crow over the party’s logo of a wing-clapping pigeon to show their displeasure.

See Gay sex violence row hits Democrat
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