You know who I REALLY blame for the passage of Prop 8?

[XemaSab]

I blame the goddamn California democratic party, and all the goddamn democrats in California who could not organize a goddamn trip to the bathroom.

I feel like I should be happy about the election of Obama, but I'm actually really pissed.

I'm pissed about goddamn Prop 8, and I'm pissed about the goddamn district 2 congressional race.

I'm EXTRA pissed that California went for Obama not due to any superior organization on the part of the state party, but DESPITE the state party.

This is the same goddamn party who puts up goddamn nerds with NO charisma against Republican movie stars.

There's a complacency in this state that makes me ANGRY. Yeah, we go blue every four years, but this is also a state where people get KILLED for being gay and being homeless... Synagogues get bombed, crosses get burned... and somehow everyone carries on with this MYTH that California is SO liberal.

Hey people in the Bay Area and LA, instead of being self-congratulatory that YOU live in a liberal area, think for a minute. Think about why prop 8 passed. And NO, it's not those black folks down in Compton or over in Oakland. It's all the folks in Redding and Fresno and Bakersfield and Lancaster. And it's not just the fundies, it's the demoralized democrats who live in these places who are not connected with other democrats and feel like their votes don't matter.

Here in Redding we did not see a SINGLE no on 8 sign, billboard, commercial, or bumper-sticker.

Our congressional candidate, Jeff Morris, who was running against Wally Herger, went down to flaming defeat in a 60-40 blowout. He was outspent by 20 to 1!!!!!!! Herger raised 880,000, and Morris raised 43,000. Morris didn't get a DIME of state or national money.

And you know what the stupid state party chair said? "If we had known Morris would do so well, we would have provided some funding."

And as far as the presidential race went, WE WENT DOWN TO THE LOCAL DEMOCRATIC OFFICE TO GET A DAMN OBAMA SIGN FOR THE DAMN YARD, AND WE WERE TOLD THAT NONE HAD BEEN ORDERED, AND IF WE WANTED ONE WE NEEDED TO GO TO NEVADA.

We put our names down to volunteer for Obama and Morris, and WE WERE NEVER CALLED.

Why does the state party seem to think they can run a 20-county (out of 58) campaign every four years and get away with it? Because they've been getting away with delivering California's 55 electoral votes for the democratic presidential candidate for DECADES, and they don't seem to realize the magnitude of the problem.

And back to the folks in the Bay Area and LA: you have the same problems the state party has. You think you're organized because you have critical mass, but you're totally not organized. All those people in San Francisco who didn't bother to vote? Yeah, that's symptomatic of what I'm saying.

Trying to ramp up a democratic network from scratch every couple years is a FAILURE. It's a failed way to win elections.

The republicans have PERMANENT networks of fundraising and organization. We have SHIT.

Yeah, there's a big fucking list somewhere of people who are willing to throw down some fat cash, but fat cash is NO substitute for a real network of people to campaign for issues like gay marriage, or candidates, or anything else.

In summary, we have a LOT of work to do organizationally in this state.

[JVS]

1. So are you saying that CA needs a 58 county strategy?

[XemaSab]

2. That is EXACTLY what I'm saying.

[amdezurik]

6. that is a big gaping mistake all righty

Look at the county breakdown and coastal cities by and large are blueish and the central valley and parts east are almost solid red. There is a tendency to fall into the trap that San Francisco and LA are all of the state and they really are not, no matter how much O'Loofa rants about it.

[proud patriot]

39. That's Exactly what we need to do ...

I'm in the Bay Area but would be willing to put
time in on the weekend, during school breaks and,
summer in areas in need of help .

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. You know what I really blame?

People who spend more time blaming and bloodletting instead of organizing a coalition.

Obama didn't become the our first African-American President by calling everyone racists or by blaming groups of people for their faults. He did it by building diverse coalitions around a message of hope.

"Everyone who voted against me is a bigot" regardless of the truth of that statement (and yes, even I believe that's true) is decidedly NOT a message of hope. It is not something that will cause voters to empathize with the cause. It will not reach out and convert people that have been deluded by years of religious brainwashing. It will not work.

[goodgd_yall]

21. Agreed wholeheartedly

We need to win people over and not just blah, blah, blah about church people. There are ways, I'm convinced, that gay marriage can be discussed that would reach some people and turn them around, even people basing their objection on religious principles. And, as I noted in the breakdown, 10% of those voting Yes on 8 did not affiliate with any religion. Just half of that 10% would have defeated Prop 8.

[Calitarian]

49. Completely agree

Hey good, can you show me this breakdown?

[fujiyama]

36. You got it

I agree wholeheartedly. What happened in CA was shameful. but there are signs of hope there. The margin by which it passed was narrow - more narrow than it would have been in just about any other state.

I think people have to realize that in the short term these laws will ultimately be decided by the CA courts until any sort of state or federal legislation is introduced that will protect any notion of gay marriage (definitely not going to happen on the latter). So hopefully the CA court will side with the challenge to Prop 8 which is under way and it is ruled unconstitutional. It will take a lot of effort and outreach with this issue and activists may not win every time, or even most of the time. And by outreach, I mean actually having a conversation with religious groups. It won't be easy and it won't convince most, but a few hearts and minds may be won. That's what we can hope for in the long term.

For now, I say fight this is court, and try to get another proposition on the ballot in 1 or 2 years that repeals prop 8.

The last thing that should be done, as I've seen some do on this board, is race-bait. That's absolutely disgusting, despicable and uncalled for. Yes, people are upset about this, but trying to blame any one particular group for homophobia is idiotic. Most religions are not particularly gay friendly at all and in a very religious country that's a tough line to cross.

[bananas]

4. k&r nt

[mrreowwr_kittty]

5. Jesus. It sounds like we have a better Dem organization in AZ!

And I thought ours was for shit. Of course, we got our asses handed to us in this election. We actually lost seats in the state lege and Maricopa County still has that racist fascist thug Joe Arpaio as our Sheriff. Oh yeah, our gay marriage amendment passed by a wide margin too.

[AlCzervik]

7. the problem is that since California is blue no one really bothers to try that hard, it's taken

for granted it will stay blue and very progressive but that won't continue if we don't get some real organization in this state. We need Howard Dean to come for a 3 month long visit.

[EFerrari]

13. The only Democrat that ever knocked on my door was one of Howard's 50 States kids.

I almost fainted.

[Beregond2]

8. You should send this post to Howard Dean.

And thanks for restating what I keep saying: Liberal CA is more of a myth than a reality. It contributes to the complacency of liberals there.

[nichomachus]

9. I really thought they were going to try to steal CA this year

They didn't, but I think the Prop 8 debacle shows how easy it would be to do that. The worst thing about Prop 8 is that they now know what they have to do -- get the churches involved. If we don't slam the churches hard over this one, you'll see CA go red in a short time. The churches are also going to be a little drunk with power over this.

[AntiFascist]

14. Those supporting gay marriage need to address the churches, not oppose them...

we need to demonstrate that the core groups sponsoring Prop. 8 want religious law to rule the land, and are opposed to separation of church and state. We need to show that we tolerate religious beliefs, as long as they practiced in church, but we do not tolerate it when they cross the line to the state constitution. This was not a question of religious freedom, it was more a matter of religious persecution, something the founders of our nation were directly opposed to.

[goodgd_yall]

24. Well said! n/t

[nichomachus]

38. You would think, but they won't give up that power

It's all they have left.

[robinlynne]

32. try? you have no idea of all the purging that went on here. Hundreds of thousands of purged voters

here in LA, all the new young voters. all of whose votes are not yet counted. and will be counted in 28 days.

WAKE UP AND COUNT THE VOTES PEOPLE. There are 2,800,000 unprocessed, uncounted votes. The differnce on prop 8 is 400,000.

Stop whining and check the votes. Count them. verify them! Prop 8 will probably go down if you do.

[KitchenWitch]

10. Great post!

Thank you.

[EFerrari]

11. "Oakland" / Alameda County did NOT pass H8.

And I couldn't agree more about this disfunctional state party.

[XemaSab]

16. Good to know that the town I was born and raised in rejected hate

[EFerrari]

17. You know something, I think the L.A. County numbers are bad.

I spent hours going over them the other night. They don't make any sense to me. I don't believe L.A.
County passed this thing. And that county is a mess and had a LOT of problems during the primary.

The No on H8 people conceded and only they know their reasons. But I wish to FSM that they would have held out for the count and while we sorted out this stuff -- because L.A. County vote totals STINK.

[XemaSab]

20. Interesting

That's about #3 on my list of counties that I would have guessed rejected it by a wide margin.

[EFerrari]

23. It passed by 1% or so and I don't buy it.

And I have no reason to believe the totals when the opposition is FILTHY and the votes aren't even counted.

I do not believe it.

ETA: And in my tinfoil brain, that's why this latino/black story has been pumped all over the whore media -- so no one will LOOK at the votes.

It's true that most likely black and latinos vote in L.A. County -- but they did NOT have the numbers to pass H8.

[goodgd_yall]

25. I would have too, but

L.A. county is very diverse; it's got pockets of liberal thought, but also pockets of conservatives and outright right wing whackos. At least that's my impression.

[EFerrari]

27. Yes, that's right. It's not a big blue ball.

But, this result doesn't make sense to me. I don't believe half a million Obama voters voted to take away someone else's right. We've spent too many nights sitting up waiting for L.A. County to come in and rescue a progressive candidate or proposition for me to buy this.

I'm going to have to go back into the history of these types of propositions in that county. But, it would have been nice for those votes in L.A. County to have been counted and also to make sure there was an audit done on this outcome.

[robinlynne]

41. We monitored. muchmuch info. major purges of hundreds of thousands from the rosters.

In addiiton they used "emergency ballots" with no tracability, no numbers. no way to track them. W found proviosnal voting varied from 10-37% in the rpecincts we swa, and yet only 260,00 provisoals accoridng to our registrar.
the smae registrar who would not act when we found forged documents in the voter database, made by YPM, a Rpeublican aid company. Those 9000 registrations, made by the now indighted felon Mark Jacoby continue unchecked to this day.
It isn't time to go public yet, although we went very public about the emregncy ballots, and perhaps stopped that trick. They sent real ballots out on elciton night with sheriffs even though the assistnat registrar told me on Monday. "There are no more ballots; there are no ballots to be had", when I asked him tos end more ballots to a precinct with onyl 450 ballots, 1000 voters...

We just keep telling no on 8 to look at the votes, but they refuse.
I sent them a resource on how to check tabulation. no interest.
We don't have the womanpower to do it all for them.
So we gave up trying.
the courage campaign has tuned this into another Courage CAmpaing fundraiser for themselves. Perhaps that is why they don't want to look at vote totals? or check statistics?

ou got it. The numbers are all wrong.
We had 200 poll monitors. still gathering the reports.

[EFerrari]

50. Thank you for making me feel less crazy.

The Courage Campaign will never get another cent from me for this disrespect of California voters.

[BeFree]

12. Oh

I thot you were gonna say the god damned voting machines. Cause that is a probability. A very good probability. Look into it.

[EFerrari]

18. If I were a rich woman, I'd buy a recount in Los Angeles County.

I don't believe those numbers. Maybe I'm wrong but, if I had the dough, I'd be willing to be proved wrong just to know for sure.

[BeFree]

22. Don't tell me....

...that was the first time that question about the machines has been asked?

If the vote was machined, the pubbies get a two-fer. Just look at the cracks against the party the op was opening up.

[EFerrari]

26. The OP is right about the state party, imho.

In 2004, I practically had to BEG to even find a Kerry sign. It was unreal.

And Howard Ahmanson is one of the f#cks behind this proposition. So, of course the machines should be questioned in our key counties like HelLA.

Brad is the only one I see going after this. Brad and I have had our differences but he is RIGHT about this vote. The narrative was dropped into place (black people hate gays) as if pre-fabricated. Now, no one will really look at the process. Mission accomplished.

/freep spelling

[BeFree]

28. Howard was behind 8?

Brad asking questions is a good thing. Anybody who is truly po'd at this needs to help him.

HA is bad news around voting machines. He pratically owns the damn things and he knew he couldn't get McCain so he went down the ballot. That's my educated guess.

[EFerrari]

29. Yes, he was one of the funders along with Eric Blackwater Prince's mom.

It's dirty. We're going to find out later, it was dirty.

[AntiFascist]

42. Here is a great biography...

"The Man Behind Proposition 8"

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/democracy/106102/the_man_...

If more people knew about this then Prop 8 would probably not have been as popular. Another case of the "No on 8" leadership asleep at the wheel.

[Zodiak]

15. Ohio has this problem

Many of the Ohio Democrats are actually Republicans who ran as Democrats just so they could oppose the incumbent puke.....like Ben Nelson. Many of the rest are DLC types that inspire no one.

Ohio has gone puke for many years because basically the party is top-down organized and cannot make themselves known for longer than 6 weeks before a major election. There seems to be no permanent infrastructure.

Obama had his organization completely independent of the Ohio Democratic party, and it was AWESOME to behold! If we had 1/10 of the power Obama harnessed, and it was structured the same way, Ohio would not have these little teeny blue oases in a sea of red.

The good thing is....we are fixing that slowly.

[eridani]

35. I guess sometimes it's necessary for a campaign to do an end run around the local party

Obama people were very well organized in WA State as well, but we have a pretty strong party structure that grows out of our caucus system, and the Obama people worked with it as much as possible. In our legislative district, I was able to get early information about which precinct committee officers were really active and which only nominal, so they could focus campaign volunteer effort where needed.

[goodgd_yall]

19. Another sign that No on Prop 8 was not well organized was

when they ran out of signs at the Democratic headquarters. Why were there not enough---and this is Sacramento County, not the Bay Area where you might say they were so popular, they ran out.

I appreciate the OP's statement about the Bay Area and L.A. being self-congratulatory, I might even say "smug" for living in liberal areas. Democrats in liberal areas can't ignore the rest of California, because, see what happens when you do? I read many posts about how people thought Prop 8 would not pass, and I was one of very few who stated that it would pass, because I live in the Sacramento valley and saw the organization, visibility, and enthusiasm of the Yes on Prop 8 people.

[XemaSab]

31. I drove the length of the state last week

and I did not see a SINGLE no on 8 sign until election day in Santa Barbara.

[Starry Messenger]

30. This needs several more recommendations.

Where can we start? We need some of Obama's people out here to show us how to organize and get things off the ground here. (Some visits from the man himself would be nice, too *hint* *hint*).

I LOVE the 58 county strategy idea. I'm on board.

[Mollis]

33. XemaSab, just so you know

I had--still have--a No on 8 bumper sticker
I gave 1 to my boyfriend, and 3 to friends, saw 1 in a parking lot at the mall, and a homemade sign on a car at Shasta College.
But those were the only ones I saw here.
Of course, our fine county did vote 70-30.

[NuttyFluffers]

34. i will agree to that. watching my dem parents v. my GOP state poli ads is eye opening.

as a registered republican (for a decade now and quite open about it here and on DU) i knew exactly why i registered. i wanted to study a functioning and working political machine at work, and i wanted to keep my flaming liberal vote safe from republican dirty tricks. and damn, if the state dems are not some of the most flailing, disappointingly unorganized group i've ever had the displeasure of attempting to help. volunteerism for them was not so... productive, so i switched to working directly with election poll staffing, as a sort of neutral compromise. it's embarrassingly bad in comparison to the organization and advertisements from CA republican party. sure they are rather impotent in staunchly liberal areas, but at least they put the effort continuously right outside those strongholds' edges.

CA democratic party could learn a lot from Howard Dean...

[Hugin]

37. A truly worthwhile rant.

Good catch, XemaSab.

[cliffordu]

40. I completely agree. Best post on this whole mess so far!!!

[Karenina]

43. Tell us how you REALLY feel, XS!

Great post.

[curse of greyface]

44. Kick on target 100% nt

[XemaSab]

45. Thanks for the kick

[Tumbulu]

46. I agree that we need a 58 state party

I am also in the second district and Herger should be gotten rid of, but if the state party won't help, how can it change.

And another point, if is it so easy to change the state's constitution, why don't we get rid of the 2/3 majority rule for tax increases this way?

[Cleita]

47. I really have to agree with you on this.

I blame the goddamn California democratic party, and all the goddamn democrats in California who could not organize a goddamn trip to the bathroom.

I gave up on the Democrats in my county because they can't seem to realize that the Democratic Party isn't a social club.

[Zhade]

48. Hey, don't hate on us nerds.

:p

Personally, I blame the HATEFUL BIGOTS WHO VOTED FOR IT.

[XemaSab]

51. Some of my best friends are nerds

I'm just irritated that there are people with obvious charisma, and people with NO obvious charisma, and we seem to put up the latter for statewide office every darn time.

[EFerrari]

52. Did you see this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[joshcryer]

53. I blame Obama's mixed message.

"Are you against gay marriage Obama?" "Yes but I'm for civil unions which give the same benefits as marriage." "Isn't that being for gay marriage?" "No! Absolutely not! I'm against gay marriage!"