Why Prop 8 Will Fail

By David Salter | Article Date: 11/04/2008 12:02 AM
In a few days, America will see the beginning of a new era, and California will see the new era it gloriously began almost five months ago allowed to continue. Barring some unforeseen and tremendous act of external destruction, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States, and California's Proposition 8 will fail.

This is not cockeyed optimism talking, but rather the result of analysis of prognosticating and historical lessons both clear and unheralded.

Forget everything you've heard about the national polls. This close to the election the only thing that matters is that little map of splotches of red and slathered layers of blue that can be found on sites from realclearpolitics.com to latimes.com and beyond. The former puts 259 electoral votes solidly in Obama's column, not to mention 47 leaning, making a grand total of 306. That's over 35 points above the needed number to win on Tuesday, and it's not even counting 75 toss-up electoral votes.

If Obama carries either of the two major states leaning his way (Virginia or Ohio), he wins. If he gets even one of the toss-up states of Florida, North Carolina, Indiana or Missouri, he wins. If he prevails in Colorado and New Mexico, he wins. John McCain needs to win not just one or two, but every single one of those states to win. McCain's home state of Arizona isn't even solid for the Republicans: its ten electoral votes are merely leaning his way as of seven days before the election.

Obama wins.

Take a look at what this means, Californians: three of the states that would solidify an Obama victory are in the eastern time zone, where polls close at 5pm California time. Three more will close their voting booths at six. And if Virginia or Ohio goes blue early on, that's two to three hours that the news media will have to trumpet Obama's victory before our polls even close. And that's not even taking into account the effect of exit polls, which will begin showing Obama's strong victories possibly before we even hit the snooze button in the morning.

So what on earth does this have to do with California's Proposition 8, which would rewrite the state constitution to eliminate any marriage that is not heterosexual?

USC law professor and long-time political commentator and campaign strategist Susan Estrich likened a blowout election to a USC football game. If someone with a crystal ball told the rabid Trojan fans that the team was going to win against UCLA, would fans still show up?

If you root for the Cardinal and Gold, you betcha. If your colors run closer to baby blue, you may, however, stay home with a good book. Nobody wants to be on the losing team, or worse yet, witness the carnage, especially when you know how it's going to turn out. This isn't a horror movie, although sometimes it doesn't feel too far removed.

Those of us too young to remember the presidential elections of the 1980s are probably not as familiar with the concept of what are known as “down-ticket races,” which are essentially those that occupy every page of the ballot that does not say “President” somewhere on it.

What a lot of people fail to remember is that all those other check boxes add up to mean just as much if not more to one's daily life than the choice between Obama and McCain. The entire U.S. House of Representatives is up for election or re-election, as well as a third of the Senate, not to mention state legislatures and governors who, as we have certainly seen in California, can have a larger impact on their constituents' daily lives than the hoo-has back in the Capitol building 3000 miles away.

And then there are the ballot initiatives. Sure, the local, state and federal legislatures can discuss or pass bill after bill all they want but when was the last time you saw something happen that affected you right then, that moment, without weeks, months or years of appeals, vetoes, filibusters or delayed implementation? No, the way to get something done here and now is to put it on a ballot and have the people decide. And in most cases this is an opportunity to right a legislative wrong, to offer hope to the future in a bond measure, or to otherwise add a bit of hope and, yes, change to the world we live in every day.

Every once in a while, though, someone or some group decides to use the process to reverse the process: in essence, to wrong a right. California's Proposition 8 is the most ominous because while Arizona's and Florida's similar ballot measures attempt to deny rights that have not as yet been found to exist (although they inevitably do) in their respective constitutions, Proposition 8 is a reaction to the recent and long overdue enforcement of that right by basically wiping it out of the constitution once and for all.

But it won't work, and it isn't necessarily because people want gay marriage.

Sure, out-of-state interests, particularly the Utah-based Mormon church, are pouring money in by the millions to pass the proposition. Sure, misleading but effectively frightening ads seem to run constantly on television, radio and YouTube. Sure, Sarah Palin said she'd support a federal ban on gay marriage.

But Sarah Palin doesn't vote in California. The elders of the Mormon church and their countless members from Utah don't vote in California. Joe the Plumber does not vote in California.

Those who so vehemently oppose gay marriage do not have the numbers of those who vehemently support it. If every eligible voter in California went to the polls on Tuesday, Proposition 8 would probably pass, not because people hate gay marriage so much but because most people would just as soon not have to deal with it.

But on Tuesday, as the talking heads begin shouting about Obama's landslide victory (and it will be a landslide, based on every evidence available, unless there is something very sinister and wrong with America that is hiding just beyond the pollsters' radar) with three hours left for Californians to vote, something strange will happen. A good deal of those who would have preferred McCain, or would have preferred a world without gay marriage, will likely go about their lives and skip the lines at the voting booth just as California Democrats did in 1980, 1984, and 1988, even though that meant that solidly Democratic federal Congressional seats went red against all odds. What fun is it to vote for the guy who already lost?

The reverse effect, however, is also a possibility, despite Estrich's analogy. It cannot, and must not happen, by any means. No matter how far ahead Obama is when Californians get off work at five or six in the evening, every single person who cares about equality, about stopping the legislation of hate, about the future of California and, by example, the rest of the country, must go out to mark the bubble for No on Proposition 8.

And then it will truly be the beginning of a glorious new era.