Arizona Offers the Very Latest in Stupid Gun Laws

It’s one of those things that make very little sense at first glance. In the state where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suffered a catastrophic gunshot wound and several others were killed at the hand of an over-armed gunman, an effort to destroy unwanted guns and keep them off the streets is torpedoed by a soft-on-crime governor and legislature.

Associated Press: Arizona cities and counties that hold community gun buyback events will have to sell the surrendered weapons instead of destroying them under a bill Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Monday.

The bill was championed by Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature who argued that municipalities were skirting a 2010 law that was tightened last year and requires police to sell seized weapons to federally licensed dealers. They argued that destroying property turned over to the government is a waste of taxpayer resources.

Democrats who argued against the bill said it usurps local control and goes against the wishes of people who turn over their unwanted weapons to keep them out of the hands of children or thieves.

Buybacks are popular among some police and elected officials who either pay cash or hand out gift cards in exchange for weapons. Tucson and other Arizona communities destroyed weapons from the events, arguing that because the guns were voluntarily surrendered, the laws concerning weapons seized by authorities didn’t apply.

Apparently, some people had trouble understanding the word "seized." Oddly enough (this being Arizona, after all), a lot of the legislators probably support "English-only" legislation. It’d be easier to take them seriously if they actually understood the language themselves.

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The NRA Exists to Sell Guns and Ammo. Period

Yesterday, Public Policy Poll released numbers showing that the National Rifle Association's favorability had slipped into negative territory. It was close -- 42% positive vs. 45% negative -- but PPP reported that this represented a "10 point net decline in the NRA's favorability" compared to their numbers before NRA President Wayne LaPierre's disastrous press conference. You remember, the one where he revealed he was insane. The issue is dragging House Republicans' numbers down as well.

What the NRA desperately needs is to change their image from a collection of trigger-happy psychopaths with a gun fetish -- which is what they are -- to an organization of levelheaded protectors of freedom -- which is what they pretend to be. The problem is that, being a collection of trigger-happy psychopaths with a gun fetish, they have absolutely no idea what the hell "levelheaded" looks like. As a result, they stage PR nightmares like this, reported by NPR:

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband, Mark Kelly, have formed a political action committee to support prevention of gun violence. The announcement came Tuesday, the second anniversary of the mass shooting in Tucson that left six dead and wounded 13, including Giffords.

Churches and fire stations around the city rang bells in memory of the victims and in commemoration of other mass shootings since Tucson.

The Tucson Police Department also held a gun buyback Tuesday. Police want to destroy the 206 firearms turned in to them. But the National Rifle Association says that would violate Arizona law.

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Obama and Immigration: Why the Right Thing to do Was Also the Smart Thing

President Obama's announcement that he will end deportation of undocumented people who came here as children was seen as a gamble. After all, it may get Latino voters more enthusiastic, but what about those who are freaked out about illegal immigration? The president was obviously throwing those votes away. For example, an analysis by the Associated Press:

There's not much President Barack Obama can do to boost the economy in the next five months, and that alone might cost him the November election. But on a range of social issues, Obama is bypassing Congress and aggressively using his executive powers to make it easier for gays to marry, women to obtain birth control, and, now, young illegal immigrants to avoid deportation.

It's a political gamble that might fire up conservatives, many of whom remain cool to Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Democrats think it's more likely to inspire enthusiasm among groups that were crucial to Obama's 2008 victory — young voters, women and Hispanics.

There is, of course, a glaring flaw in this thinking. Conservatives are already fired up by nearly four years of rightwing BS from Fox News and talk radio. When 51% of Republican voters are birthers and believe that Obama's a Socialist, Communist, Muslim terrorist, and atheist at once, it's a pretty clear indication that they don't like the man very much. Conservatives have worked hard to keep the outrage meter pegged on the right, so anything Obama does comes without consequence on that front.

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Hey Mitt, Why's Your AZ Co-Chair Trying to Kick Obama Off the Ballot?

State level Republicans are crazier than outhouse rats. That's not even a matter of opinion, that's pretty much provable fact. Take, for instance, today's news from the Iowa GOP.

Radio Iowa:

The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party’s platform committee says the group is intentionally questioning President Obama’s citizenship with the wording in one section of the document. It calls for presidential candidates to “show proof of being a ‘natural born citizen’ of the United States.”

Don Racheter, chairman of the Iowa GOP’s 2012 platform committee, spoke with Radio Iowa by phone this afternoon.

“There are many Republicans who feel that Barack Obama is not a ‘natural born citizen’ because his father was not an American when he was born and, therefore, feel that according to the Constitution he’s not qualified to be president, should not have been allowed to be elected by the Electoral College or even nominated by the Democratic Party in 2008, so this is an election year. It’s a shot at him,” Racheter said.

You don't get much crazier than birtherism -- although I suppose you'd have to call this neo-birtherism. Of course, neo-birtherism is probably worse, since it means you accept that the original birther argument was horsecrap, but you're sticking with the broader premise anyway. It's practically an admission of playing politics with paranoia.

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The Media, Neo-Nazis, and Arizona

The "papers please" law in Arizona has brought a lot of attention to the state. The media, always with an eye out for conflict, has spent most of their time looking at what both sides are saying about it, but very little time looking at the law itself. Someone in charge of the teevee machine decided to invoke the "equal time for nutjobs" rule. So we get one side saying one thing, another side saying something completely contradictory, and close to zero factchecking to see which side is right. So for the sake of argument, if one person points out that the law is unnecessary, while another says that illegal aliens are stealing peoples' brains to build a robot army, the TV media would treat these as equally valid points -- because that's "fair" and "unbiased." Television journalists must never allow themselves to be biased by the facts.

So, we don't find out that the law is, in fact, most likely unconstitutional. Or that the concern is about the rights of legal citizens, immigrants, students, and tourists -- not about protecting criminals from the consequence of crime. See, those things aren't as much fun as boiling the story down to two simplistic points of view, casting it as a difference of ideological opinion (rather than a difference in independent fact), and putting the whole thing across as a war of personalities, in the form of talking heads yelling at each other. So one side says one thing, the other says something completely different, no one bothers to point out what is and isn't true and, by the time the segment is over, you're just as uninformed as you were before you watched it. Oddly, watching two people with contradictory talking points isn't all that enlightening.

But if the media is doing a crappy job of reporting what's actually in the new law, they're also doing a bad job of showing who both sides actually are. The Republican Party itself is torn on the issue, making the left vs. right/"he said, she said" reporting more than a little dishonest. It's not left vs. right, it's left vs. half of the right, with the rest of the Republican Party running away from the issue as fast as they can. One reason for this is that many Republicans see the Hispanic vote slipping away rapidly. Another is that they know who a lot of the people behind the law are -- and they don't want to have anything to do with them.





If there's a center to the nativist universe right now, it's Arizona. Nativists are English-only, "America for Americans" types on steroids. In fact, in large part, they're white supremacist thugs. Hero of the nativist movement Joe Arpaio has a large fan base in the neo-nazi crowd. In fact, there's evidence of a working relationship between Arpaio and a supremacist group known as United for a Sovereign America. Likewise, the author of the bill that would later become the "papers please" law, Russell Pearce, also has a close relationship with the group's leader, J.T. Ready.

But it's much harder to put across the media narrative of an issue that's merely a difference of political opinion when you show who the sides in the argument actually are. On no cable network anywhere will an interviewer get caught dead saying, "The neo-nazi has a point. What's your response?" to a lawyer for the ACLU. So that whole "neo-nazi" thing becomes not so important. Without the conflict, you don't get the ratings. And, in an argument between self-avowed racists and just about anyone on the planet, the racists lose by default -- no more conflict. So we'll just keep this little skinhead thing under our reporter's hats. No sense in distracting everyone from a good, telegenic fight with a lot of facts.

And facts would be these people's deadliest enemy. One of the big catalysts of this law was the murder of a rancher in southern Arizona. Illegal alien drug smugglers killed Robert Krentz, because that's just what illegal alien drug smugglers do. Footprints led from the scene to the nearby border. Krentz death became the flag they rallied around, whipping up a "no one is safe" attitude. Rightwing blowhards went from claiming that illegal aliens "killed a rancher" to saying that they're "killing ranchers." Undocumented drug smugglers were everywhere and, if you didn't pass this law, they would kill you -- guaranteed.

But, again, the facts aren't the friend of the supremacist:

Arizona Daily Star:

The killing of a Southern Arizona rancher that sparked an outcry to secure the border was not random, and investigators are focusing on a suspect in the United States, the Arizona Daily Star has learned.

High-ranking government officials with credible information spoke to the Star, citing a desire to quell the fury over illegal immigration and drug smuggling set off by the shooting death of longtime rancher Robert Krentz on March 27.

So there actually isn't any evidence that the killer was illegal and the trail to the border wasn't the trail of the killer. In fact, at no time did authorities say they suspected an illegal immigrant -- everyone else did, to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria. But, as I say, facts are the enemy of the supremacist, so facts are out of the conversation.

On the other hand, another crime by someone not unknown has been getting a lot less attention.

Southern Poverty Law Center:

The relentless demonization of immigrants by hard-line nativist groups was punctuated by murder last year, when the leader of Minuteman American Defense (MAD) and two followers were accused of shooting a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter to death in Arizona. The crime set off a firestorm of mutual recriminations among nativist leaders — but it did nothing to slow the movement’s growth.

The double murder took place near the town of Arivaca last May, when MAD leader Shawna Forde and two of her confederates allegedly stormed into the man’s house before being driven away by shots fired by his wounded wife, who reportedly later identified Forde as one of her attackers. Officials say that Forde wanted money to finance her group and believed her victims were cash-rich drug dealers.

Again, if this were to become part of the conversation, the weight would fall down against the pro-"papers please" side. So we'll just keep that to ourselves. Did I mention that Forde was also associated with Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), another group that backed the "papers please" law? I probably should.

So the "he said, she said" reporting going on right now requires a great deal of willful ignorance on the part of the media to sustain it. Illegal aliens probably didn't kill Krenz, but nativists did kill a father and a daughter. And, while the anti-immigrant side argues that undocumented Hispanics are invading America and taking over, Forde's motive in the killing was to help fund "a revolution against the United States government" and, one would assume, take over.

But hey, that's not what keeps the narrative going. The media has no interest in seeing a fight ended. There are no ratings in that, so there's no money in it. If the argument were suddenly to be revealed as "nazi vs. not-a-nazi," it's pretty obvious who would win here. So you just ignore all the nativism and supremacism and present the whole thing as an honest difference in policy. That's not to say that for some it isn't a legitimate policy issue. It's just to say that, for others, it's all about hate. You should know that, but you aren't being told.

Remember, the job of the TV talking head isn't to inform you. The job of the TV talking head is to get you to watch TV.

-Wisco


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Republicans Don't Really Have Good Ideas

Early reports were that the wrecked oil platform off the Gulf Coast wasn't seeping oil out into the Gulf of Mexico. We're now looking at a oil spill as bad -- or worse -- than the Exxon Valdez disaster. This is, hands down, the worst environmental disaster for a good long time -- if not in American history. And the damage won't just be to the environment.

FOX News:

As a massive oil slick creeps ever closer to the Gulf Coast, officials in Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi and Florida are bracing for the worst. The economic impact over miles of prime coast land has the potential to be catastrophic.

Officials say the slick from last week's offshore drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico may have a devastating impact on one of the coastal states' most precious commodities — shrimp — and the entire industry that surrounds it. And state officials acknowledge that the oil's effect on travel and tourism to the area could be equally destructive.

Remember how offshore drilling was going to be so freakin' good for the economy? Remember how safe it was all going to be?





Remember this?

And this?

Of course, President Obama let himself get talked into this bad idea, but now there's probably some momentum behind the move to change his mind back. That momentum comes in the form of an oil slick the size of Delaware moving slowly, but unstoppably, toward the shores of the Gulf States. FOX reports that revenue of more than $441.8 million from shrimping and $65.5 billion from tourism alone will likely be lost. I chose FOX for a reason; even the network that all but took "drill baby, drill!" as their motto in 2008 can't put a happy face on this. This is 100%, unspinnably bad.

My point here isn't just to report the obvious -- that a huge environmental catastrophe is really, really bad -- but may be an even more obvious point; Republicans don't really have very good ideas. And that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Republican ideas have become less proposals that might be good for the country and more advertising slogans to sell the Republican Party. "Drill baby, drill" was never going to bring down oil prices. It had no hope in hell of doing that and the Republicans knew it. But it was simple, easy to remember, and -- as a successful marketing campaign -- wouldn't be shown not to work until President McCain had already taken the Oath of Office. So "drill baby, drill!" it was.

Likewise, we need only look at recent events in Arizona for another example of economic disaster disguised as a Republican "good idea." Arizona's new "Papers please... Macht schnell! Schnell!" law stands to cost the state $2.7 billion in lost Mexican tourism alone, according to the Arizona Republic. And this in a state that's been so crushed by the economy that they seriously considered selling their State Capital building to plug the budget hole.

To the lost tourism and various boycotts, add the inevitable lawsuits -- from both sides. Not only are groups around the nation ready to sue to block the law, but the law itself calls on citizens to sue police if they believe the law isn't being enforced. The Arizona Attorney General's office is about to become the lawsuit capital of the United States. Lawyers stand to make a lot of money off this, but taxpayers can expect to pay through the nose. And now police will be housing undocumented (and documented, but yet to be proven so) people, instead of having the feds do it. Arizonans will now pay twice for every illegal alien caught in their state -- as well as paying for housing the inevitable American citizen, legal immigrant, or tourist caught up in the police state net. Brilliant.

What we can learn from all this is that, in addition to just being stupid, Republican ideas are really expensive. Hey, let's degregulate Wall Street! Let's invade Iraq! Let's spend boatloads of money on missile defense systems that don't work! Let's create a budget-busting Medicare drug plan, but not come up with any way to pay for it! Let's chase down illegal immigrants by asking everyone (OK, just Hispanics and people with accents) to prove they're a citizen! Let's drill baby, drill!

So you might save a lot of time and agony by just adding "Get out your wallets, because this is going to cost a lot of money" to any Republican argument for any Republican idea. Go ahead and add that to the pros and cons. Because, if you don't reach into your back pocket and pull out your wallet, that Republican bad idea will reach in and do it for you.

-Wisco


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On AZ Immigration Law, FOX News Deliberately Misunderstands the Issue

FOX News seems to believe they've discovered some lefty hypocrisy in our concern over Arizona's immigration law. Turns out that people who are all up in arms about protecting illegal immigrants don't seem to be all that interested in protecting illegal immigrants. They're boycotting Arizona, but they aren't sending out engraved invitations to undocumented people.

They may call themselves "sanctuary cities," but very few of them are offering sanctuary to the illegal immigrants in Arizona who now face possible arrest and deportation.

As San Francisco and other "sanctuary cities" declare war on Arizona over its new law cracking down on illegal immigrants, most state and local governments that provide a safe haven to undocumented workers refused to publicly roll out a welcome mat for the estimated 440,000 illegals in the Grand Canyon state.

It's been said that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. Unfortunately for the visually impaired squirrels at FOX, this isn't one of those once-in-a-whiles.





First off -- and probably least important -- is that the term "sanctuary city" is probably misleading. A sanctuary city is one that won't assist federal immigration authorities without a warrant and won't enforce immigration laws on its own. According to a 2008 press release from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's office, "The Sanctuary Ordinance helps to maintain the stability of San Francisco communities. It keeps communities safe by making sure all residents feel comfortable calling the Police and Fire Departments during emergencies. It keeps families and workforce healthy by providing safe access to schools, clinics and other City services."

"As a Sanctuary City, San Francisco has and will continue to provide compassionate services to all immigrants, regardless of status," the release quotes city supervisor Tom Ammiano as saying. "When certain people are targeted and denied access to vital social services, the health and safety of the entire city is compromised."

So contagious people get treatment, fires get put out, crime gets reported -- all because people aren't afraid to call 911. Those screwy San Francisco hippies and their concern for their own city's welfare. What'll they come up with next?

But second and more importantly, the outrage of civil libertarians over Arizona's new law isn't about "protecting illegal aliens," as FOX's story seems to be suggesting. It's about the civil liberties of American citizens. Arizona has justice bass-ackward here; if police suspect you're committing a crime, you have to prove you're not. This just isn't the way America works. And, while supporters of the law argue that it isn't about racial profiling, I have my doubts that blond-haired, blue-eyed Bobby Whitebread is going to be asked to produce his birth certificate any time soon.

"SB 1070 does nothing short of making all of Arizona's Latino residents, and other presumed immigrants, potential criminal suspects in the eyes of the law," reports Vivek Malhotra for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It authorizes police officers to stop and ask people for their immigration papers based only on some undefined 'reasonable suspicion' that they are in the country illegally. Given that Latinos comprise an estimated 30 percent of Arizona's population, the law presents a pretty big target."

Vivek describes Arizona as a soon-to-be "police state" and he's not exaggerating. Even before Arizona passed this bill, law enforcement in that state were violating the civil rights of American citizens.

American Civil Liberties Union [PDF]:

On the morning of February 11, 2009, Julian Mora was driving to his place of work in southern Phoenix, accompanied by his teenaged son, Julio Mora. Julian Mora was taking his usual route and obeying all laws when a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office ("MCSO") vehicle suddenly cut in front of him, forcing him to stop abruptly. Without any legal justification, MCSO deputies ordered Julian and Julio Mora out of their pickup truck, frisked them, and handcuffed them. The deputies then transported the Moras to Julian Mora's workplace where MCSO was in the process of conducting an immigration related raid. Over the course of the next three hours, MCSO deputies detained the Moras, forbade them from any contact with the outside world, and subjected them to painful and humiliating mistreatment resulting in emotional distress and injury. The Moras were effectively taken prisoner by armed MCSO personnel without any explanation for their arrest.

The Moras are American citizens who were picked up because they were Hispanics in the vicinity of an immigration raid. If that's not racial profiling, I'd like to know what is. New flash for FOX and other right wing idiots: I'm not mad because police were mean to illegal immigrants, I'm mad because police violated the civil rights of American citizens.

Now, if San Francisco and other sanctuary cities don't want to roll out the red carpet for illegal aliens, who can blame them? It's not what being a sanctuary city is about anyway. And the fact that San Francisco is boycotting Arizona doesn't mean that the city is trying to protect undocumented people -- it means they're trying to protect Americans.

Any random set on FOX News looks like Uncle Sam threw up all over it after going on a stars and stripes bender. They wear what they like to call their "patriotism" on their sleeve. But the fact that they don't care about American citizens in Arizona -- and further, go out of their way to ridicule those of us who do -- shows that this "patriotism" of theirs is as phony as the hypocrisy they want you to believe they've found at the Golden Gate.

-Wisco


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'Popular' and 'Just' are Two Different Words

It's important to remember that popularity and justice are two completely different concepts. If you want proof of that, just look at the Supreme Court. The only branch of the federal government that's not democratic, the highest court is insulated from the whims of popularity. In recent years, it's become obvious that it's not insulated from partisan politics, but that's more a failure of the people sitting on the court than a failure of the court's design. "Popular" and "just" are two different words. Life's a lot easier when they're in agreement, but this isn't always the case.

Take Arizona's insane new immigration law; it's popular, but it isn't anywhere near just.

Rassmussen Reports:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer last week signed a new law into effect that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 60% of voters nationwide favor such a law, while 31% are opposed.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans support the law along with 62% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Democratic voters are evenly divided on the measure.

At the same time, however, 58% of all voters are at least somewhat concerned that "efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens." That figure includes 29% who are Very Concerned about possible civil rights violations.

The good news here is that most people realize the danger of this law to the civil rights of US citizens. The bad news is that most don't care. Twitter users have something to pat themselves on the back about here; a study by Crimson Hexagon found that 66% of the tweets commenting on the law were critical of it. But clearly this criticism hasn't had an impact on the larger population.

Rasmussen also points out that the law is even more popular in Arizona, were 70% of residents support it. With 30% of all Arizona residents being Hispanic, this does not say good things about race relations in that state. And the history of a previous "tough" Arizona immigration law doesn't speak well for them either. In 2007, Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act. This act makes it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers and requires employers to check immigration status on hiring. How did that go? Let's check.

"Officials from 12 of the state's 15 counties said last week that they had not taken legal action against any businesses for failure to comply with the law," writes Nicole Santa Cruz for the LA Times. "Officials in two counties -- Apache and Coconino -- could not be reached for comment."

So that went well. Not too paint Arizonans with too broad a brush, but it's starting to look like when non-Hispanic employers are the problem, it's not a problem worth actually doing anything about. But when Hispanics are the problem, it's time to go fullblown police state on them. If you think I'm being hyperbolic about a "police state" here, have a look at this report from an Arizona TV station of an incident that's taken place before the law has even gone into effect:

A Valley man says he was pulled over Wednesday morning and questioned when he arrived at a weigh station for his commercial vehicle along Val Vista and the 202 freeway.

Abdon, who did not want to use his last name, says he provided several key pieces of information but what he provided apparently was not what was needed.

He tells 3TV, "I don't think it's correct, if I have to take my birth certificate with me all the time."

He provided his CDL and Social Security card, but this wasn't enough to satisfy police. They handcuffed him, took him to the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, and had his wife bring his Birth Certificate. Apparently, not being a Hawaiian birth certificate, this was good enough for Arizonan authorities and Abdon was finally released. No word on how long this all took, but it doesn't sound much like a minor inconvenience. When Rasmussen's majority indicated they were "concerned" about civil rights violations, they were right. Unfortunately, they weren't concerned enough to care much about it.

"It's still something awful to be targeted," Abdon's wife Jackie said. "I can't even imagine what he felt, people watching like he was some type of criminal."

Unfortunately for them, people are already watching them like they're criminals -- again, 70% of state residents support the law, while 30% of the population is Hispanic. Those two figures fit a little too exactly to be coincidental. There's probably some crossover -- as far as I can find, Rasmussen hasn't made the demographics of their polling available -- but you'd imagine that it's minor. In fact, we have a much smaller poll that backs up the idea that conservatives are big boosters of this, so long as they aren't Hispanic.

Think Progress reported last night that of all the elected Republicans in Washington commenting on the law, exactly one comment was critical. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said, "I strongly disagree with the Arizona immigration law." All the rest have been either praise or a non-committal expression of ignorance ("I haven't studied it yet," says senate minority leader Mitch McConnell).

What's popular and what's just may often be two different things, but it's clear that neither Republicans or the majority of voters in Arizona give much of a damn about that. In a contest between justice and popularity, popularity wins hands down.

-Wisco


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The Right's Stealth Campaign

The final USA Today/Gallup poll is out today and Barack Obama holds a national lead of 11 points. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll puts it closer, with an 8-point lead for the Democrat, 51% to 43%. Gallup also gives it to Obama by a pretty wide margin, 55% to 44%. We can pretty safely say that the consensus is that Obama's walking away with this thing tomorrow. In fact, networks will probably call it for Obama before the Mountain Time zone polls close. But, just between you and me, you can write McCain off if he loses Virginia. If that happens, the race is over early for most of the nation -- 8 p.m. Eastern at the latest. And it's looking like that's the way it's going to go.

For Republicans and rightwingers in general, looking for good news will mean looking elsewhere -- the national race is all but officially over. Where might they find these little rays of sunshine? In statewide victories for Republican Jesus. Down ticket races seem to be trending Democrat, so they're prepared for big congressional losses as well as the big one in the electoral college. They can't lose every race, but the wins will be nearly meaningless, given the lopsided nature of the next Congress.

No, the wins for the right will come in ballot initiatives. The stealth campaign for control of the nation comes in the form of control of the states through direct democracy. If they can't rule by elected office, they can rule by referendum. The highest profile referendum is Proposition 8 in California, which would amend the state's Constitution to ban same sex marriage. The good news there is that the proposition looks to be headed for a loss. The bad news is that it exists at all and that the loss looks to be a narrow one.

Los Angeles Times:

The Field Poll of 966 likely voters, conducted between Oct. 18 and 28, shows 49% opposed to the measure, 44% in favor and 7% undecided. The race is narrowing. A September Field poll showed the measure trailing by 14 points, 52% to 38%.

The new poll also found that "significant proportions" of voters on both sides are conflicted about the issue.

Women are more likely to oppose Proposition 8 than men, the poll reports; 51% of women and 47% of men surveyed oppose the measure. It also found that respondents who said they personally knew a gay person were more likely to be opposed than respondents who said they did not.

The problem here is that this ballot initiative, like similar discriminatory referenda, isn't only designed to change California's Constitution -- it's also an organizational tool. All those petitions become mailing lists, all those volunteer canvassers and phone bankers don't go away after they lose. They'll be told they'll keep up the fight and that Jesus will eventually prevail in California's battle with the Homosexual Menace. If they win -- which is still a very real possibility -- then they'll use that energy to move forward with other "pro-family" issues.





But the fact is that a loss is almost better than a win -- at least in terms of organizing. When the battle's over, people on the winning side tend to go home. When the culture war continues, the culture warriors fight on. This is where the Republican base will rebuild -- not around failed candidates, but around wedge issue ballot measures.

Arizona and Florida will both be voting on referenda similar to California's Prop. 8. In Florida, it seems close. Although polling shows the voters approving the ban 56% to 37%, Florida requires a super-majority of voters -- 60% -- to pass such a measure. This one's a nailbiter, but leaning the right way. Organizing after losing this one will be a pretty simple matter, since they can use that majority to claim "mainstream" status and because Florida conservatives tend to be pretty insane anyway (see Katherine Harris).

To give you an idea of how powerful these referenda become as organizing tools, we can look at Arizona. In 2006, Arizona became the first state to defeat an anti-marriage equality measure. The groups opposing marriage kept working, turned their petitions into mailing lists, and now a second attempt looks likely to pass -- 49% to 42%.

In Arkansas, voters will be asked to bar gays from adoption or foster parenthood. Thankfully, this looks like a big loser -- 55% oppose the measure, while 38% support it.

Don't get the idea that the right's stealth campaign is all about hating on the gays. It's just mostly that way. In South Dakota, it's about hating on the women. An initiative there asks voters to make abortion illegal in almost every circumstance. A similar ban lost last time around, but these people aren't taking no for an answer. Where the original ban had almost no exceptions, the current measure would include "limited exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the pregnant woman." That brought it much closer to winning. In fact, it's a tie -- 44% to 44%.

The S. Dakota measure is certainly unconstitutional and is meant only to challenge Roe v. Wade. There's absolutely no guarantee that it'll ever make it all the way to the Supreme Court, but it's all about the PR anyway. They're building the groundwork for a propaganda campaign to energize the crazies.

Want a reason to vote? There you go. And it's important to remember that these don't represent the right going away next year -- so neither should you. That's the danger of a successful presidential campaign, people go away. In a democracy, the fight is never over, by design. Wins must be defended.

No matter what's on your ballot, vote. But remember, democracy doesn't end on November 5. The religious right isn't going away on that day, so neither should you. We've got to win the big one and keep fighting the other ones. Democracy means that the fight never, ever ends.

-Wisco

Vote Dammit!

The McCain team got some news yesterday. It wasn't good. I imagine that they drew straws or flipped coins or played rock-paper-scissors to find out which adviser would break it to the candidate and get an up-close look at his legendary temper -- the Senator from Arizona stands a damned good chance of losing Arizona.

AZCentral.com:

A new poll from Arizona State University shows the presidential race too close to call in Sen. John McCain's home state.

The Arizona senator is leading Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama by 2 percentage points, 46 to 44, down from a 7-point lead a month ago and a double-digit lead this summer. Factor in the poll's 3-point margin of error, and a race that was once a nearly sure thing for McCain is a statistical dead heat, pollsters say.

"One would think McCain would still carry Arizona, but anybody who says they can predict the state this time, they can't. It's going to depend on who goes to the polls," said Tara Blanc, associated director of the poll by ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and local PBS affiliate Channel 8 (KAET).

Not surprisingly, the pool of remaining undecideds there is small, at about 9%. There's a real chance that Arizona could go blue this year, but only if Obama voters get out and vote.





And, with a mere five weekdays until E-Day, that's what it's down to -- who votes. Both in Arizona and nationally. That's bad news for John McCain who, despite firing up the base with his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, finds himself losing the voter enthusiasm race. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken last week found that enthusiasm for McCain was low. 26% of respondents said they were "excited" to cast their vote for the Republican, 34% were just "satisfied," and the largest percentage -- 39% -- called him "the lesser of two evils.”

Obama did much better, with 52% saying they were "excited," only 14% calling him "the lesser of two evils," and 33% merely "satisfied." Excited people vote, unexcited people may not. If past elections are any indication, Obama will have the edge in voter turnout. There are voter suppression efforts going on out there, but they only seem to be succeeding in the states McCain would probably win anyway. Still if Democrats don't make it their goal in life to punish illegal campaign tactics and make elections must harder to steal in this next term, they may not get another chance for a while. Democrats are taking this election because it's not close enough to steal.

For their part, the GOP is planning (plotting?) their triumphant return at some undetermined point in the future. Politico's Jonathan Martin reports that they've already scheduled the strategy meeting.

Two days after next week's election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement's most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.

The meeting will include a "who's who of conservative leaders -- economic, national security and social," said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.

The decision to waste no time in plotting their moves in the post-Bush era reflects the widely-held view among many on the right, and elsewhere, that the GOP is heading toward major losses next week.

"There's a sense that the Republican Party is broken, but the conservative movement is not," Martin's source told him. The idea will be to rebuild a "national grassroots political and policy coalition similar to the out Reagan years." I guess that means "pre-Reagan" years, since the talk is of the time during the Carter administration.

"Should McCain lose next Tuesday, the conversation will include who to groom as the next generation of conservative leaders," Martin writes. "A list that will feature [McCain running mate Sarah] Palin at or near the top." The lesson, apparently, was that McCain wasn't far enough to the right.

The logic here is a little hard to grasp. If the problem with the candidate was that he wasn't conservative enough, how did that result in voters turning in droves to a candidate Republicans pretty successfully branded as extremely liberal? In what world does that argument make any sense? Reason would seem to lead you to the conclusion that McCain either wasn't moderate enough or failed to portray himself as moderate enough. Yet here they are, assuming that someone like Palin holds the keys to the kingdom. No wonder they're losing seats all over the nation.

Still, November 4 isn't a sure bet -- it's just damned close to one. Those two, four, eight, twelve years in the political wilderness won't happen for Republicans if people don't get out and vote. Aesop's tortoise and the hare, you know. Sit at home in smug certainty and that big lead in the polls means jack.

That goes double for you, Arizonans. For the rest of us, if someone asks why you think McCain's losing, tell them it was because he wasn't conservative enough.

Reinforcing Republican false assumptions can't hurt any.

-Wisco