Maine's Question 1

[Miss Maine]

Yes on 1 says this on their site:

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I guess they're talking about the HRC? Which definitely isn't going to donate $5 million. Actually, the only group that's donated close to $5 million was... NOM, at $1.6 million, for their side. Then the Catholic Diocese of Maine, at nearly $550k, also on their side.

Thanks for the move, Soulty.

This, coming from an organization which gets over 40% of its funding from the "National Organization for Marriage", which is currently fighting the  financial disclosure requirements of Maine's election ethics laws.  In fact, they are scheduled for a hearing today, to enjoin the Maine Ethics Commission from taking any enforcement action against them, no matter what their investigations might find. 

Their complaint? Well I'll let their lawyer tell it:

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Oh right. People just can't get involved in referendum campaigns.

Given thast it's so onerous, so burdensome and oppressive to comply with the financial disclosure laws, one wonders how these referenda ever get launched in the first place.

Oh yeah, that's right. You don't need a big nationwide organization - with donors who want to be kept anonymous - to collect signatures and work phone trees. Not  if what you're doing really has significant grassroots support. Maybe that's why the state of Maine has  election  ethics laws in the first place?

[Miss Maine]

There's a new Pan Atlantic SMS poll out. I can't find the pdf yet, but here's an MPBN story:

http://www.mpbn.net/News/MaineNews/tabid/181/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3483/ItemId/9516/Default.aspx

No: 53% (+1)
Yes: 42% (+0)


Yay, every question position I would vote for is winning.

Yeah, I'm afraid Mary Adams will go to her grave the same frustrated, embittered woman she's been for as long as I've known about her.

Pity. She's no dummy. Just imagine what she might accomplish if she put that kind of energy and determination  toward something other than tilting at windmills.

[Miss Maine]

Yeah, Maine defies a lot of easy stereotypes about "red" and "blue" states. How close these ballot measures are depends on voter turnout. Low turnout usually favors reactionaries, especially with a combination of tax issues and social issues on the ballot.  So this being an off-off year election could mean that the angry right come out in disproportional numbers to the more characteristic Maine voters, who turned out to defeat the last question 1  - i.e., the attempt to defeat the civil rights  law for sexual minorities.

We shall see. But if this were happening during a normal election year, I doubt it would even be close.