Bay Area Reporter Weblogs

Deadline tonight for No on 8 TV ad time

Today (Friday, October 31) at midnight is the last day to donate money to defeat Prop 8 in time to purchase more television ads, but people can continue to contribute in order to help fund get-out-the-vote efforts next week, said Patrick Guerriero, No on 8 campaign director.

Guerriero urged people to keep contributing.

Prop 8 would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.

In an e-mail blast, Brad Sears, executive director of UCLA’s Williams Institute wrote, “the No on 8 campaign needs to raise $3 million by midnight tonight [Friday] – to make sure a clear message that Prop 8 is discriminatory and unfair continues to reach voters in these final days.”

In a separate e-mail blast, Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California and a member of the No on 8 executive committee, announced that Tim Gill and Scott Miller will match donations up to $100,000 “if you respond now.”

To make a donation or for more information, visit www.noonprop8.com.

- Seth Hemmelgarn

Cindy Sheehan, who’s in an uphill race trying to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), told the Bay Area Reporter Friday (October 31) that she opposes Proposition 8, but she’s been focused on her own campaign and has not made a financial contribution to No on 8.

However, Sheehan, who’s running as an independent candidate, said she’s sent out at least 60,000 door hangers and mailers and has made note of No on 8 on her literature.

“Being able to marry whoever you want to marry,” regardless of gender, “is a human right,” said Sheehan, who held a news conference (apparently attended only by the B.A.R.) to support Prop U, which would make it city policy that San Francisco’s congressional representatives vote against further funding that would support putting troops in Iraq, and oppose Prop V, which urges the school board to keep Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in the city’s schools.

Referring to Prop 8, she said that she’s “amazed” that in 2008, people “could be so ignorant and bigoted and close-minded that this even got on our ballot.”

Sheehan, who’s straight, is opposing Pelosi because she has continued to support funding the war in Iraq. Sheehan’s son, Casey, was killed in the war.

At a another news conference attended by Pelosi earlier Friday, Tiffany Burns, Sheehan’s campaign manager, repeatedly called out to Pelosi and asked her why she won’t debate Sheehan. Pelosi ignored her and Burns was asked to leave.

- Seth Hemmelgarn

Free No on 8 buttons displaying the number of years wearers have been in committed relationships will be distributed Saturday, November 1 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the front entrance to the San Francisco Ferry Building.

LGBT and straight couples are welcome. Those interested can also go to www.Noon8button.com and make a button they can display digitally for Facebook pages or computer desktops.

Single people can also join in by creating buttons showing the number of years a best friend or family member has been with a partner.

“Our buttons are designed to prompt personal conversations about Proposition 8,” the Noon8button Project said in a statement. “With the barrage of aggressive and negative messages about ballot issues we feel our positive, individual and human message will have particular power and relevance.”

Proposition 8 aims to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.

So far, 12,000 buttons have been given away by the Noon8button Project, a group of advertising professionals, along with the help of other organizations.

For more information, visit the Web site or e-mail info@Noon8button.com.

- Seth Hemmelgarn

The No on 8 Web site is back up after being hit by a “distributed denial of service attack” that took down the site for several hours last night (Wednesday, October 29). The campaign said the assault originated not just in-state, but also in Texas, New Jersey, and Georgia.

The campaign over Proposition 8, which would eliminate same-sex marriage in California, has grown increasingly heated as Election Day nears.

The attack started late Wednesday afternoon when the Web team was alerted by higher-than-normal traffic, which escalated over the next several hours, slowing the system. By 10 p.m., a small team of engineers concluded that the site was under a full cyber attack, the campaign said.

The No on 8 campaign has reported the attack to the FBI and the Secret Service, which has jurisdiction over such attacks to prevent breaks in the national financial networks.

“I’m sure we’ll hear a lot of denials today from the Prop 8 campaign, but this is clearly an orchestrated attempt to tear down what has become one of the largest grassroots movements in California electoral history,” Patrick Guerriero, NO on 8 campaign director, said in a statement. “We have reported this to the FBI and other federal authorities and we have secured our site in ways we never thought would be necessary. But make no mistake – this was an attack against individual rights, not just a Web site.”

Chip White, press secretary for Yes on 8, was not able to provide comment immediately.

White later sent an e-mail, “We had nothing to do with it. Our website has suffered from high traffic a number of times.”

The No on 8 campaign said that according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, by targeting a computer and its network connection, or the computers and network of the sites, a distributed denial of service attack may prevent legitimate users from accessing e-mail, Web sites, online accounts, or other services that rely on the affected computer. The most common type of attack occurs when an attacker floods a network with information.

For more information on No on 8, visit www.noonprop8.com.

- Seth Hemmelgarn

The No on 8 campaign needs to raise $3 million in the next three days, or the campaign will likely lose, Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California and a member of No on 8’s executive committee, wrote in an e-mail blast today (Wednesday, October 29).

Proposition 8 on the November ballot would eliminate same-sex marriage in the state.

Kors wrote that on Tuesday, the Yes on 8 campaign “reported donations of $2.2 million, dwarfing the $255,650 [No on 8] reported, and called on their donors to contribute another $3 million.”

Yes on 8 is using the money to buy “every available ad space on TV in California to blast even more of their hateful lies and prevent our messages from being seen,” wrote Kors, who added that he’s increasing his own donation to No on 8 to $50,000, the most he has ever given to anything.

“I’m asking you to increase your gift too – at whatever amount you can, so that we can match the other side on the air,” Kors wrote.

To make a donation, go to www.noonprop8.com.

- Seth Hemmelgarn

With 11 days until the November 4 election, the No on 8 campaign reported Friday, October 24 that it has seen a “huge surge” in donations in recent weeks. Proposition 8 would eliminate same-sex marriage.

The No on 8 campaign (www.noonprop8.com) raised $3.9 million at a Hollywood fundraiser Tuesday; on Friday, Apple Inc. announced a $100,000 donation. Money has been coming in online as well, campaign officials said.

“We’re finally matching proponents dollar for dollar after being outspent for weeks on TV and radio,” campaign director Patrick Guerriero said in a statement. “That’s the good news.”

But Guerriero cautioned that “the challenge is to keep it up, particularly as Proposition 8 continues to be largely funded by the Mormon Church and its members.”

The Mormon Church and its members have contributed more than $10 million of the $28.8 million raised by the Yes on 8 campaign.

Guerriero also noted that Yes on 8 has the capability to produce “a sudden tidal wave of money into Prop 8.”

In fact, on Friday the Baptist Press had a article on its Web site saying that Yes on 8 has been out-fundraised by 6 to 1 this month and that the campaign was warning that a heavy influx of donations was needed in the next week. The article reported that Frank Schubert, campaign manager for Yes on 8, sent out an e-mail stating that $3 million needed to be raised in the next week.

“The institution of marriage is in cardiac arrest in California and I am pleading with you to help save it,” Schubert wrote.

A No on 8 rally featuring Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Stuart Gaffney, a plaintiff in the landmark California Supreme Court same-sex marriage case, will be held Wednesday, October 29 at the University of California, San Francisco from noon to 1 p.m. at Saunders Court, 513 Parnassus Street.

People are encouraged to “come out, come out, come out” in white coats, white jackets, and white wedding wear in a visible show of support for the No on 8 campaign.

UCSF Allied and Out, LGBT Student Association, and the No on 8: Protect Our Constitution Interest Group at UCSF are co-sponsoring the event, which will also include Tim Kelly, clinical professor in pediatrics at UCSF, and Joel Ginsberg, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.

- Seth Hemmelgarn

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and former Congressman Tom Campbell in separate statements on Friday, October 24 announced their opposition to Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative.

The men, both Republicans, join a growing list of GOP officials, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, and out lesbian San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis in opposing Prop 8.

In a statement released by the No on 8 campaign, Baca, a 43-year veteran of the department, said he was opposed to the initiative because of his experience working with members of the LGBT community.

“The gay men and lesbian women of the law enforcement community are some of the most responsible and virtuous people I know. To deny them their ability to further responsible lives outside of the job is inconsistent with the core values of public service.”

Campbell, who used to represent South Bay in Congress and formerly served as a state senator, made his statement in an editorial posted on the Republican Web site www.reason.com. In a piece entitled “Ending Marriage Discrimination in California,” Campbell said that basic Republican values lead him to oppose Prop 8.

“Republicans believe deeply that government should be limited. Government has no business making distinctions between people based on their personal lives. That’s why, as a Californian and a Republican who has held elective office at the federal and state levels, I will be voting no on Proposition 8,” Campbell wrote.

San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis has gotten under the skin of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s spokespeople, and now a representative for one of them wants him to call off his “phone zap” in which he asked people to call and demand that the governor take a more public role in the effort to defeat Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative.

Petrelis issued his call earlier this week, and provided phone numbers to Schwarzenegger spokespeople Julie Soderlund and Adam Mendelsohn. “When you call those numbers, you’ll get a live receptionist,” Petrelis wrote. “Please be polite and to the point. Tell them you want to reach Soderlund and Mendelsohn to have them convey to the governor that his muscle and voice are needed to defeat Prop 8.”

Soderlund works for the governor. Mendelsohn works for Mercury Public Affairs, which advises the governor. It was Mendelsohn who earlier this week announced that Schwarzenegger would be attending a rally in Columbus, Ohio to stump for Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Halloween.

Schwarzenegger has said publicly that he opposes Prop 8, but has not made any comments about the initiative in recent weeks. A poll released today shows Prop 8 losing, but the gap narrowing (see the B.A.R.’s coverage on the Web site).

On Thursday, October 23, Petrelis told the Bay Area Reporter that a man in Mendelsohn’s office who identified himself as Chris asked him to stop the phone calls.

“He said the phone calls were interfering to much with his work,” Petrelis said.

Reached Thursday, Chris, who declined to provide his last name, told the B.A.R. that he has been “getting calls” as a result of Petrelis’s action. He declined to say how many calls he has received, but said that some of them have come at “inconvenient times”

“This is a busy office,” he said.

“I was trying to direct him to a number in the governor’s office,” Chris said, asking that people call the governor’s office of constituent affairs. However, that number, (916) 445-2841, is largely an automated line. Petrelis said the point of his phone zap was to have callers talk to an actual person.

Chris said that Mendelsohn “is aware” of the calls being made to his office.

Yes on 8 is launching a statewide bus tour next week, and the campaign announced today that at noon Tuesday, October 21, the tour will stop at Foothill Missionary Baptist Church, 1530 Foothill Boulevard in Oakland.

The tour begins Monday, October 20 in Sacramento and will include stops in Modesto, Los Angeles, and other cities.

Also today, (Friday, October 17) CBS5 released a SurveyUSA poll that showed 48 percent of likely voters would vote for Prop 8, while 45 percent would oppose it. The survey, based on responses from 615 likely voters interviewed October 15-16 has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

To make a donation or volunteer with the No on 8 campaign, visit www.noonprop8.com.

- Seth Hemmelgarn