Saturday, November 08, 2008


Top 3 Leaders of No on 8:
No Donations to the Campaign


Many of the people analyzing what went wrong with the No on 8 effort, myself included, mistakenly believe the directors of the campaign were lawyers Kate Kendell and Geoff Kors. Their names were quoted often in releases, and endless pitches for funds, but they were political window dressing.

The real decision-makers were three top-notch, high-priced, and experienced political consultants, who collectively, on paper at least, guaranteed a win for the gay community on November 4. A press release from May sheds some light on top No on 8 directors:

Steve Smith of the Dewey Square Group will be lead campaign consultant. Maggie Linden of Ogilvy Public Relations, Worldwide will lead the media effort and Lake Research Partners, headed by Celinda Lake, has been retained as the polling firm for the campaign.

I'm not aware of any interviews with any of these individuals since the devastating loss on Tuesday, are you? Have we had any accountability and answers from them? If there are answers out there from them about their research and decisions, which led to our defeat, I'd like to read their comments.

Who are these three? Click here to read Smith's bio, and here for Lake's bio, and then here for the bio on Linden.

And if you want a laugh, check out the SF Chronicle's Prop 8 donations' search engine for contributions from the consultants. Looks like none of the three people who really ran the No on 8 campaign made no donations to the effort.

When do we get accountability from Smith, Lake and Linden?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

There is an internal memo on line which shows Celinda Lake warning the campaign to get their money supply up to match the other side, which by then was the first to go to TV ads.

She warned of the critical nature to be on air along with the other side, or risk decling voter support.

Michael, I think you are on track to ask how this campaign was run. But Lake polling was not the problem.

Anonymous said...

You are so right it's not even funny. Follow the money. Follow the "experts." Find out what lessons they took from Massachusetts. Any?

Sally said...

Michael, I don't think this sfgate search engine is finding all the donations that were made - I definitely donated many times to No On Prop 8, and my donations aren't showing up. Why don't you find out why the sfgate search engine isn't returning comprehensive results? That would be a public service.