Never were ahead

There is a conference going on now in Los Angeles to figure out the next steps in the Calif. marriage battle -- and to figure out what wrong last fall to avoid repeating it. That last part included mulling over the analysis that Matt Foreman wrote last week. I think the public polling showed the marriage ban being defeated, which was why its passage was a surprise to many. However, the campaign now reports their own private polling never showed them ahead and at the beginning of October they were down by 17%. Ouch! That left a big question. Would releasing those poll numbers energize gays more than energizing the Fundies, especially since the Fundies were energized by the prospect of losing? Strangely, their political consultants said the ban being ahead by such a wide margin would bring out even more Fundie money. The reaction to the ads that gays saw as wimpy -- it didn't work to remind straights about gay sex -- was that more gay visible ads should have been used to energize the base. But from last week's analysis, 46% think gays are immoral and 6% are actually gay. What does energizing your base do in this case? It makes 50% of the voters wobbly in their support.