Prop. 8 Campaign Spending: Ineffectual?
SOURCE:
From the San Francisco Chronicle a report on a study suggesting that the millions of dollars spent by both sides of the Prop. 8 battle in California in 2008 may have been for naught:
The study by Patrick Egan of New York University looked at polling on gay marriage and domestic partner elections in 33 states since 1998 and found that no minds were changed despite millions in spending, hard-hitting advertising such as the much-quoted “like it or not” TV spot with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and emotional pleas from both sides.
By election day, voters who opposed same-sex marriage before the campaign still opposed it, and those who backed it continued to back it.
“The study indicates that when all of this (campaigning) is over, the result is a wash,” said Egan, who was joined by supporters of same-sex marriage at a news conference at San Francisco City Hall.
It’s tempting to perceive studies like this as ridiculous (when I sent the story to some of my friends, they immediately tried to find fault with its methodology). It’s immensely counter intuitive to think that $83 million had no effect on voters’ perceptions and decisions in such a widely-publicized campaign. And yet my sense is that there are at least three reasons to believe that there’s a certain amount of credence to this proposition:
- The No on Prop. 8 television and newspaper ads funded by organizations such as Equality California — one of the major objects of donated campaign funds — were widely criticized as ineffective. They frequently avoided showing images of same-sex couples or addressing the idea of same-sex marriage up-front, instead using language like “equality for all” which skirted delicately around the actual issue at hand. I find myself very sympathetic to the belief that these ads didn’t help to normalize and to familiarize the public with same-sex relationships, and so it’s possible that money spent by the No on 8 campaigns, at least, was simply spent in a particularly ineffective way.
- People’s opinions about culture-war issues are highly polarized and highly ingrained. The Chronicle quotes (soon-to-be-former) head of the National Organization of Marriage Maggie Gallagher as saying that “Most Americans know what they think about marriage.” NOM may have been the largest single donor to the Yes on 8 campaign, but I think Gallagher is right that people who have an opinion one way or another about marriage equality hold those opinions very firmly and deeply and are unlikely to change their minds. The question, then, is the small middle ground which can decide a very close vote like this. Those people may not vote on that particular ballot item, or they may be won over by advertising on either side of the issue. As we saw by the closeness of the polling for the duration of the 2008 campaign season, though, that’s a pretty small group of people, and likely an even smaller group of actual voters — and they’re certainly not those likely to donate to either side’s campaign.
- Finally and most importantly, things like advertising which are funded by campaign donations might not just have been ineffectual because Equality California didn’t know how to run a convincing marketing campaign, but also because introducing the public to acceptance of LGBT people is not something that can be done on the strength of campaign donations. The most enthusiastic and reliable straight allies are those who know queer people personally, and who can identify with their family members’ or friends’ emotional and practical concerns about securing equal civil rights. Last I checked, No on 8 campaign funds weren’t being used to support LGBT Californians coming out to their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. That takes a courage and strength of will that can’t be bought for any price—but it’s what Californians will require to overturn Prop. 8 in 2012.
Happy Pride Month!
Emily is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She attends Princeton University.
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