From David at the blog "A Soft Answer":
EightMaps.com creator doesn’t want to be found.
I say “out” this person.
No, not hound, not harrass, not seek the loss of livelihood. Invite this person to step into the cleansing spotlight of public scrutiny.
Hey, thousands, if not millions, of pro-SSM fans will applaude and throw roses at this person’s feet.
It would be fitting that this person also take the good with the bad. Criticism, that is. And invite him to a press conference, too. Let's see him on “Dr. Phil” along with spokespeople for the Yes campaign. And a few of the people who have been harrassed, hounded, and lost their livelihood due to the reprisals and vengeance-seeking of people like the Map person.
Let’s put the test to the notion that transparency and accountablity applies to everybody's neighbors.
I said, “him”, but I’ve no idea if it is a him or not. Let’s find out.
This person ought to step forward and live the very thing that the big ole Map was supposed to promote. And we know that the intention was not beyond the pale, right?
It should all be good, right?
Given the fact that there have been no persecutions of indivdiual No-on-8 contributors, no door-to-door seek and destroy missions, it would be a very poor excuse for this Map person to claim to fear the criticism of those who disagree with the anti-8 Map and its use by protestors.
Apparently not. Maybe it feels a little too chilly. Better check the weather on the Map.
6 comments,:
Well, I found this:
http://www.notesonvirginia.com/2009/01/21/ive-found-out-who-created-eightmapscom—now-what/
It'd sure be nice to know what he did to find the name.
Pearl
Thanks Pearl, I liked his commentary...
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Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that much of the anger still bubbling in California is due to the awareness that No on 8 screwed up in a major way, snatching defeat from the jaws of a completely achievable victory.
Face it: No on 8 enjoyed a commanding lead in the polls for several months, and everyone thought it was going to sail through. But when the Mormons and others kicked into high gear, No on 8 was caught napping, with ineffective messaging, a poor ground game and anemic coalitions that were no match for the well-funded and well-planned anti-marriage campaign.
Railing against hate and bigotry doesn’t change hate and bigotry. Complaining about discrimination doesn’t lessen it. And pouting about yesterday’s loss does nothing to secure tomorrow’s victory.
This is all a fancy way of explaining why I think Eightmaps is so very, very wrong, and that its creator, though justifiably angry, is not justified in his actions.
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By the way, the links that didn't come through in the copy and paste can be found in the original link Pearl gave. They are very interesting retrospective on the 8 campaigning.
The problem with his commentary is the same as the commentary at the end of any failed campaign. They always assume the campaign is everything, that no matter what or who is being voted on, that a good campaign can make it stick.
In this case, the California opinion polls show the exact same thing we have seen over and over again. The less people think about the issue, the more likely they are to accept neutering marriage. As the populace got closer and closer to actually making a decision, they had to look into the matter more closely. The more someone looks at the issue, the more they are going to support marriage.
You can look at opinion poll dynamics anywhere. When neutering marriage is not on the front pages is when it enjoys the most support in the polls. Once it becomes most front and center, it loses.
This guy wants to blame it on a weak campaign. The truth is, it failed because it is a weak idea.
But when the Mormons and others kicked into high gear, No on 8 was caught napping, with ineffective messaging, a poor ground game and anemic coalitions that were no match for the well-funded and well-planned anti-marriage campaign.
No, what happened was that the Yes on 8 campaign finally asked questions about the effects of neutering marriage which the No on 8 campaign could not answer, except by screaming "lies, lies", when in fact they knew full well they were true. Children were going to be indoctrinated in the schools with the message that same-sex marriage was no different than opposite-sex marriage, and religious organizations that opposed that idea would be increasingly penalized for expressing it (depending on how much legal loophole there was for the state to argue that they had crossed into the public sphere----that's a fine line indeed). The denials were unconvincing, to say the least.
Still, nobody should think for one moment that the PRO-Prop 8 side really used all their best points effectively. Indeed, I would have to still say they were almost caught napping, even though they won. Apparently out of squeamishness, they did not simply ask the public: if same-sex and opposite-sex marriage is equal, does this not mean thus that same-sex and oppposite-sex "sex" is equal; i.e. that "sex" which never can possibly produce children is equal to the one type which does? Or does it mean that sex is irrelevant to marriage, with all that implies? Nor did they really hit the public with the simple question of what children growing up with this idea of marriage a generation down the line are going to think that it means. In states where this point has been hit hard, the pro-marriage side's actual vote has come out way ahead of the poll numbers.
Yeap. It was a weak campaign for a weak idea that wilts under close scrutiny.
I think On Lawn has a significant point, though Op-ed, that even when this idea had many advantages the No side's campaign blew its very large lead.
They were directly responsible for their own campaign which attempted to put The Homosexual Relationship into the blurred background. The No leadership claimed this was a strategy based on lessons they had learned in focus groups. Of course, now, they are criticized for the strategy -- and, as On Lawn mentioned -- the execution of that strategy.
Problem is, that strategy probably was the best they could have come up with given the weakness of their central idea. And, given the post-election protests, they have quickly pivoted around their first axiomatic belief that disagreement is hateful and bigoted.
Sure, some will offer the token disclaimer that the focus groups were probably correct even if there are some non-bigoted arguments in favor of the man-woman basis of marriage. But they do not truly believe that -- not even the usually fair-minded Jon Rauch can hide his certitude that bigotry is at the root of the disagreement. This axiomatic belief has unhinged Andrew Sullivan on this very topic and all that flows from it.
Consider the huge advantages that the SSMers had in California.
First, in the immediate aftermath of the success of the direct vote on the statutory provision that reaffirmed the man-woman criterion of marriage, the legislative branch enacted a new relationship status that was implicitly aimed at accomodating the need for protections on the part of The Homosexual Relationship.
So the SSMers gained that AFTER the people had reaffirmed marriage as both-sexed. That is not attributable to bigotry against gays and lesbians.
Then the legislative branch (against the premise of the statutory provision for the man-woman criterion) rapidly increased the scope of domestic partnership so that it became a localized merger with marriage in California. That scope creep setup the escalation of the courtcentric approach of the SSM campaign.
The Attorney General refused to use the strongest argument -- the one that has won in other state courts -- and so weakened the defense of marriage in the courtroom. Big advantage for the SSMers, that.
Complying with the implied surrender of the executive branch, the judiary did two things: it created a new protected class of Californians -- supposedly based on sexual orientation but really explained as defined by minority status based on gayness. But that's a real stretch given the precedents in that state's jurisprudence.
Marshall's Goodridge opinion could not bring itself to do this, even though its rhetoric was very close to that of the Californian Supreme Court's majority opinion. To my reading, the California court's majority complied with Marshall's subsequent advisory opinon to the Massachusetts state legislature. So it adopted the very same flawed reasoning. But it did produce an axiomatic demand for a special status for The Homosexual Relationship.
So, with that created, the court then went further and directly abolished the statutory provision that the people had directly approved in their reaffirmation of the both-seed basis of marriage. That provision did not discriminate based on gayness. Yet that was the false premise of the majority's reasoning. To get to its predrawn conclusion, the court first had to neuter the meaning of marriage.
That court opinion in itself is a political intrusion that is an abuse of judicial review. The court went further and refused to stay its decision in light of the upcoming vote on a marriage amendment. This was a brazen attempt to freeze political discurse.
That gave another political boost to the No side. It setup the pro-SSM AG to rewrite the marriage amendment's title and its description. It setup a repeat of the rush to SSM that Newsom had initiated a few years earlier.
When it comes to votes on propositions, the No side generally have the advantage that comes with resisting change to the staus quo. But in this instance, the No side was really fighting against the status quo ante that the People had reaffirmed previously.
Nonetheless, the No side could add confusion, as the AG did, and claim, armed with the court majority's opinion, that something was being eliminated.
All told, these advantages probably gave the No-on-8 campaign 10-15% points. The AG's rewrite alone proably accounted for 10% points. But the setup, as a whole, pretty much defined the No campaign's strategy and tactics.
In sum, the No side had the best chance that any No side has had in marriage amendment elections. They were defeated. They blew the best opportunity they had at the polls.
Remember, in Massachusetts the SSMers worked very hard to avoid such a scenario despite the same sort of advantages.
Op-ed has a very significant point, too, when he said that actual votes count because actual votes focus the voter on what is at stake. Opinion polls -- and the speculative forecasting based on surveys of young people -- do not reflect this accurately. In fact, the pro-SSM type questions are designed to push the pro-SSM message in-between the times that people get to actually vote on the issue.
The rhetoric of the SSM campaign continues to elide the real disagreement. And the defeated supports of the No-on-8 campaign have turned to scapegoating when they should be admitting defeat and makig peace with the winners.
I mean, even on crass political terms, that worked for them after their defeat in 2000.
This time, of course, they've played all their best cards.
RK, I submitted my comment around the same timne as submitted yours, so I hadn't read it.
I agree with your assessment of the Yes campaign's overall approach.
The problem in California is that the ground had been softened up and the Yes campaign should have been actively firming up what had been won in the 2000 vote. But people thought the issue had been sorted out.
Probably it would have been, had the 2000 vote been on an amendment instead of a statutory provision.
Probably it would have been, had the 2000 vote been followed up with determined resistance to a localized merger of domestic partnership and marraige.
The example of California ought to teach federal defenders of marriage that waiting for DOMA to be be undermined -- in courts or via Obama's presidency -- we might as well get going on the federal marriage amendment.
And we also should be working harder on finding other ways to restrain the judiciary from abusing judicial review. That systemic problem has festered for too long. The SSM campaign has been an outgrowth as much as a contributing cause of this corruption of our form of self-goverance.
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