Maine's Question 1

[Holmes]

There will be a debate tonight between Shenna Bellows of the MCLU vs Marc Mutty of SFMM/Catholic Diocese. It's on TV, and will be from 8-9pm.

These are the rest of the debates, between Mary Bonauto of GLAD and Marc Mutty again:


Thursday, October 22nd, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Live debate on MPBN radio
Moderated by Susan Sharon, Assistant News Director at MPBN
Listen at www.mpbn.org

Monday, October 26th, 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Live debate on "207" on WCSH-TV and WLBZ-TV (NBC affiliate, Channel 6 in Portland, Channel 2 in Bangor)
Moderated by "207" hosts Rob Caldwell and Kathleen Shannon
Watch at www.wcsh6.com or www.wlbz2.com

Wednesday, October 28th, 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Live debate on WMTW-TV (ABC affiliate, Channel 8 in Portland)
Cosponsored by Maine Today Publications (Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal and Central Maine Morning Sentinel)
Moderated by WMTW-TV news anchor Tory Ryden
Watch at www.wmtw.com

Thursday, October 29th, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.

Live debate on WGAN-AM radio in Portland
Moderated by WGAN Morning News co-hosts Mike Violette and Ken Altshuler
www.wgan.com

Thursday, October 29th, 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Live debate on WGME-TV (CBS affiliate, Channel 13 in Portland)
Moderated by WGME-TV news anchor Greg Lagerquist
Watch at www.wgme.com

[Holmes]

2 things:

Watch this. It's from the hearing back in April. It just became popular all of a sudden and has gotten 400k+ views in the past two days. This is an interview with him from local Portland news.

Here is the Q1 debate from the other day, it played in the Bangor area. The questions are from actual people on the phone(most are No voters, but there are 2 Yes's ["I have a gay son and aunt, but I don't want gays destroying marriage", "it's their lifestyle that they choose" blah blah]) I think we did well enough, I mean the No debater did have some ACLU-ish arguments(cause she works for them), but the Yes debater kept going in circles around the same argument, "there WILL be consequences, are we willing to risk it!?" and stupid things like that. Their new argument is that if Q1 fails, traditional marriage won't even exist anymore and it'll just be genderless marriage. Cause if Q1 fails, everyone in a marriage right now will become a neutral gender for some reason.

The Yes debater gets really hateful and entertaining near the end, but my favourite quote was when he said "it's not about drinking in two separate water fountains" in response to the equality/discrimination argument.

[Holmes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfN0opPSw9k

I'm sorry you guys had to see that. God forbid we teach kids about tolerance, but hey, tolerance = gay agenda

[Holmes]

And they still won't file as a PAC and reveal their donors. Instead they're suing Maine to try to hide them.

Yes:

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No:

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No on 1: $4million raised
Yes on 1: $2.5 million raised [probably no more debt due to their nice $1.1million donation]

[Holmes]

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.

[Holmes]

Hmm, not yet anyway. The question is "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?", and I've seen some people say voting no means "no to rejecting the law, and no to allowing individual and religious groups refuse to perform the marriages." Which is totally untrue.

[Holmes]

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.

[Holmes]

Yes on 1 wants to produce and air these 2 ads in the final week of the campaign:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/anti-gay-forces-maine-file-suit-run-outrageous-ads

All about children... one even implies legal pedophilia if Q1 fails.

Also, I believe TABOR II will also be pretty close.

[Holmes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS9zrv_GOrs

Barf.

---

Governor Baldacci and local legislators commence GOTV effort in Bangor

Rep Cheelie Pringree and local legislators start the GOTV effort in Portland

I've actually been following the tweets of some of the volunteers... a lot of them have been targeting universities and getting as much students as they can to vote early. This election might not be as disproportionally old compared to other off-off year elections.

[Holmes]

http://twitpic.com/n9rjm

"Californians! Here they come!"

That's from a press conference by Peter LeBarbera("Americans For The Truth About Homosexuality" or something), Brian Camenker("MassResistance", hate group) and Paul Madore("Maine Grassroots Coalition"). It was this morning... I don't particularly care, I'm probably not even gonna watch it. But I like the fact that the Yes on 1 side flew in the heads of hate groups to Augusta to speak for them in a press conference. A group from the No side was present too, fwiw.

Televised debate tonight at 5pm - 6pm at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. Watch Marc Mutty talk about how same-sex couples need respect and rights(but not marriage), 6 hours after having hate groups bash gay people to Maine's media!

[Holmes]

Live streaming now:

http://www.wmtw.com/video/21454281/index.html

Marc Mutty was replaced by a more classy and uptight man... I wonder why.

[Holmes]

Damn, I wish my boyfriend wasn't in class! I think I'm gonna take a shot every next time the Yes debater says "special interest groups", "radical", "redefinition", "procreation", and things like that.

The No debater is awesome!

[Holmes]

Mary did a great job for the No side... she took the bait for the polygamy rhetoric though. But the Yes debater kinda made a lot of weird gaffes that went in circles... mmyeah.

The most awkward part was when he went on about how the law says that if you disagree with same-sex marriage, you're a bigot, and how in reality, you're not... he went on for like 2 minutes. Yeesh.

My favourite quotes...

Yes:
"There is no separation of church and state in the constitution."
"Does it make me a bigot because I want to protect traditional marriage?"
"Separation of church and state has to do with keeping the state out of religion."
"I'm not a lawyer, and not comfortable talking about legal aspects."
"This radical redefinition of marriage erodes the values and hurts children."

Among others about special interests and how marriage is all about procreation and nothing else, and if this law passes then we won't have another generation.

No:
"If No wins, then there will be an outbreak of happiness. And weddings. And joy."
"Schools need to create environment where ALL children feel comfortable, safe, and respected."
"I don't see how my marriage is going hurt Brian Souche's ability to raise a family."
"In regard to economic benefits, providing equality to everyone is priceless."

[Holmes]

Why is Yes on 1 asking university students to vote?


New kos poll on Question 1

No - 48 (+2)
Yes - 47 (-1)
Undecided - 5


New ads!

No on 1
Yes on 1

How nice to see Yes on 1 going back to fear mongering after flirting with positivity in their previous ad. This one is cute... "DON'T BE FOOLED! IT WILL HAPPEN! YOUR LITTLE SON WILL BE TAUGHT ABOUT GAY GAY GAY JUST LIKE IN OTHER STATES! IT WILL HAPPEN!"

[Holmes]

^ Don't worry, Maine is very homogeneous(96% white, independent, sense of community[biggest city is 62k not counting the metro]), less catholic than California, and the no campaign is running a real campaign. Not to mention the No side has 8000+ volunteers to GOTV this weekend and on election day, and the Yes side... doesn't.

Maybe you're just underestimating California's liberalness, although we still could've won there last year. But anyway.

What's going on in Maine with the Vote Yes on 1 movement is absolutely disgusting.

You think so?

[Holmes]

[Oops, I meant to say overestimate in the previous post, not underestimate]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Ec1m5nH3k

This story was on the news statewide news last night. The yes couple just talks about religious right talking points, and even have their children chime in. And the no couple is just some boring lesbian couple of 24 years with kids. Cute contrast.

GOTV meeting pics:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ndAyv4BjPbk/SunBG3uN_1I/AAAAAAAABAI/H0Qjl02KhkE/s1600-h/Screen+shot+2009-10-29+at+12.13.56+PM.png
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ndAyv4BjPbk/SunA5aGzKiI/AAAAAAAABAA/t1E_jiMbZHA/s1600-h/Screen+shot+2009-10-29+at+12.14.40+PM.png
http://wockner.blogspot.com/2009/10/maine-gay-marriage-battle-update-1.html

[Holmes]

Watch these local news stories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnjuNrA8Nf8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Y-lpvUVCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQAcB-RW3lY

Sigh. How sad and annoying. And the Yes campaign has too many signs, in all the same places. Reminds me of McAullife.

eta: In regards to the sign vandalism, this guy thinks the Yes campaign did it to themselves to fire up their base. And that it's a hate crime... what?

[Holmes]

PPP has it 51 - 47 for yes. With younger voters support No by only 3%?

What a surprise considering their track for the night.

[Holmes]

I dunno, every other poll has it going the other way, plus the young vote being that closely divided is questionable. And they will show up. Granted, not as much as they did for Obama, obviously.

There's only one more day left to contemplate polls anyway, and you might be happy to know that the No on 1 side has the better GOTV effort. They had 500 canvassers each day this weekend, and thousands of phone bankers, and those same people will show up again for Tuesday to get people to the polls.

When the Yes on 1 side isn't crying about a "possibility" that something will discussed in class, they're busy planting hundreds of signs in the same area and whining to the media that two or three got vandalized.

[Holmes]

Just anecdotal stuff right now. Weather is good, not raining and sunny in some places. Some volunteers are saying that some polling locations are having record turnout for off-off year elections, mostly in Portland.

Final No on 1 rally part 1, part 2

In Portland. Drew a good crowd for short notice.

[Holmes]

To put it in perspective, when Maine voted for the non-discrimination bill in 2005, turnout was only in the mid 40's. When they narrowly voted against the same bill in the last 90's, turn out was in the mid 30's.

The after-work and after-school voting rush will begin soon. It's 5pm.

[Holmes]

Not gonna check in until the end probably. Have fun guys.

[Holmes]

We won Portland by like 70%, lost Lewiston(2nd biggest city) 60 - 40 but won Bangor(3rd biggest) 56 - 44. South Portland is 64 - 36.

... I said I wouldn't even be watching. Ack.

[Holmes]

Btw, there are 100,000 absentees to count later on too.

[Holmes]

We lost Augusta 53 - 47.

WMTW Reports:
No 52% 46871
Yes 48% 44093

We won Gorham 64 - 36, and Scarborough 56 - 44, and Old Town 53 - 47.