The Obama campaign is lavishing some of its cash advantage on the LGBT community with targeted ad buys in Ohio and Texas leading up to the critical March 4th primaries in both states (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote that day). According to Obama LGBT Steering Committee member Eric Stern, the campaign has just completed an ad buy with queer newspapers in the four largest LGBT markets of those two states -- Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston.
This is a generic version of the full-page ad that will appear starting this Friday (2/29) in Outlook Weekly of Columbus, the Gay People's Chronicle of Cleveland, the Dallas Voice, and OutSmart, which is Houston based. Buying a full-page, four-color ad that appears one time typically costs anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 in weekly publications. In the Gay People's Chronicle, for instance, the ad cost about $850 according to the paper's advertising manager; the same ad went for about $1500 in the Dallas Voice. (Ad provided by Obama '08)
The ads were the brainchild of Stampp Corbin, co-chair of Sen. Obama's National LGBT Leadership Council. Stern called the coordinated buy "the icing on the cake" in terms of the Obama camp's outreach to the gay community in Ohio and Texas. "It's a direct appeal to LGBT voters asking for their support," he said, adding that the ads will include market-specific information about how people can get involved with the campaign. The Obama campaign has actively been trying to cut into the longstanding ties between gays and lesbians and Hillary Clinton.
Wisconsin (92 delegates) voting is under way and Hawaii (29 delegates) caucuses tonight, both likely to fall for Obama, but perhaps not quite as decisively as once was thought.
The Obama campaign’s internal projections (accidentally sent to reporters last week) had him winning Wisconsin by a 7-point margin, 53% to 46%, and Hawaii 52% to 47%.
But in Wisconsin, polling appears to have tightened up a bit over the weekend with Rasmussen Reports giving Obama a 4-point edge in Wisconsin (+/-4.0 margin of error) and nearly a quarter of those polled saying they might change their mind before voting.
Hawaii still favors Obama, partly because he grew up there and partly because caucus states have been good to him. But Clinton did put some resources into the state, not the least of which was Chelsea who spent a couple days stumping for her there -- leading to some last-minute momentum on the ground.
Wisconsin does hold some demographic favorables for Clinton: it's about 9/10 white, has a large working class, and is slightly older on average than the rest of the nation. However, the state also holds open primaries, meaning independents and Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary if they so choose. Wisconsin's nearly 30% registered independents are expected to be a boost for Obama.
If Clinton were to win Wisconsin, it would be a huge morale booster, though it might not result in a big delegate change since the margin would likely be small. The pundits are still leaning Obama, though most are saying that it may well be tighter than originally expected.
Before Super Tuesday, I was in Seattle and crossed paths with Idaho's Democratic Party vice chair, Jeanne Buell, which yielded a number of interesting insights.
Perhaps most poignantly given Obama's growing momentum, our conversation really brought home his strategy of redrawing the political map by paying attention to smaller states and red states while Clinton was focused on the big enchiladas like New York (288 delegates) and California (441 delegates).
Buell was ecstatic because Obama was scheduling 3 hours of time to visit Idaho, a predominately red state with only 23 delegates, on the Saturday before Super Tues (he ended up drawing a crowd of about 14,000). Buell, who is a superdelegate in Idaho, had promised that she would pledge her vote to whichever Democratic candidate would actually visit Idaho before the caucus. "I never dreamed any of them would show up," she told me. When asked why Obama would spend several hours in a state that only offers 23 delegates, she said, "I'd like to believe it's because he cares about the people of Idaho." Pressed further, she added, "I think it's smart. Do you know how much press the man's going to get?"
Few people are questioning how smart it was now. Idaho Democrats chose him over Clinton by a margin of 80% to 17%. Clinton almost didn't make the 15% threshold she needed in order to be eligible for delegates. Obama's efforts in Idaho -- he also opened an HQ there last November, far in advance of any other candidate -- are an example of the type of ground game that has led most recently to his string of eight straight wins in February.
Hillary's campaign has taken note. On a press call today (2/13), Clinton's senior advisors promised that the campaign would have paid staffers in all remaining states that have yet to vote. "We are recommitting and redoubling our efforts to make sure that we have the most effective and largest grass roots operation in these states moving forward," said Guy Cecil, the campaign's political and field director. Whether those efforts are too little, too late remains to be seen.
On a separate note, Buell is part of Idaho's women's caucus and had attended the DNC's diversity summit in Las Vegas last summer, where over 100 LGBT activists also attended to represent the community. In the course of networking, Buell met some LGBT participants and spent time talking to one transgender activist. "I had never met a transgender person before," Buell said. "I had no idea what type of turmoil they go through." Buell came away from the summit with a better understanding of the queer community and now wants to start an LGBT caucus in Idaho.
The last post on exit polls (below) prompted a number of comments... no surprise that the LGBT community is involved and opinionated. Let me just add a few things to this discussion.
First, it is true that the only insights the polls afforded about GLB voters came from states where the general population also voted for Clinton (NY and Cali), suggesting that it's possible queer voters were simply mirroring their straight counterparts. It would definitely have been interesting to see if the same were true in states like Illinois and Georgia, where Barack won big.
Poli-sci Prof. Ken Sherrill also noted a few things about the numbers. First, he questioned the sample in California, since it showed only 4% of CA voters identified themselves as GLB, which struck him as quite low.
He also said that queer exit polling is difficult to do in places where people are less likely to identify themselves because pollsters don't end up with a big enough sample to make it statistically significant. "You need 1500-2000 interviews," he said. "You want to be able to analyze at the very least 75-100 respondents. If you get fewer than that number saying they're GLB, it's not worth including the question."
Having said that, he added that states like Illinois, Texas, Florida should have enough GLB respondents to ask the question.
Among many interesting developments last night, mainstream news organizations acknowledged that gay, lesbian, and bisexual voters exist and asked them to identify as such in the exits polls. A solid majority of those polled in California and New York preferred that Sen. Hillary Clinton be their next president.
NBC exit polling found that among the 4% of California voters who identified as GLB, 63% voted for Clinton, 29% for Obama, and 1% for Edwards. In New York, 7% of voters self-identified as GLB and 59% voted for Clinton, 36% for Obama, and 3% for Edwards.
New York and California were the only states in which this question was asked. The results show that the GLB electorate didn’t move much from where they were last fall in Hunter College’s national polling of the community, when likely GLB voters preferred Clinton by 63%, Obama’s by 22% and Edwards at 7%.
So as Neal told you earlier, the Obama party started off mellow with the slow jams, but once the doors opened. They let supporters in right in time for Obama's speech in Chicago. Somehow, a gaggle of three older ladies got into the press box; they were interesting to listen to. They could barely see the jumbotrons displaying the returns via CNN and MSNBC, but they cheered just as loud as everyone else whenever they projected a winner. When I told them which states he won, including North Dakota, Idaho (where there's a significant amount of KKK members), and a few others, one woman said, "They must really want change."
The scene at the Avalon was as diverse as anything: young, old, black, white, Latino, Asian, male, female... just seriously everything.
According to Mitchell Schwartz, a California director for Obama said that Alameda county had to keep the polls open an extra hour to get the votes in. It's a long voter count here in California -- we use paper ballots for our 22 million are eligible voters.
After that, they got the jams pumping with this cute DJ trio. Playing some good music (Boz Scaggs, Earth Wind & Fire, "Everyday People," "Love Bazaar," "He's the Greatest Dancer.")
The people at this place were dressed like this is a party for like, Skyy Vodka. Despite Clinton's big win in California (53-37), the party goes on...
Ethan Geto, center, with NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer (left) and Lt. Gov. David Paterson
Ethan Geto, a gay NY power broker and LGBT advisor to the Clinton campaign, made an interesting case for why a Hillary presidency would be a bigger step forward for the queer community than an Obama presidency.
"I think that the major reason gay men are looked down upon in American society is because people perceive their gayness to mean they have given up their male privilege — they are now like women. It’s considered a tremendous relinquishing of power, of status," said Geto. "I’ve always felt that the gay movement never would have really gotten off the ground without the feminist movement. The black civil rights movement was a great model and symbol in many ways, but I’ve always felt, the more research I’ve done over the years, that feminism is really the platform for gay liberation, gay rights, and so forth. I think that when and if a woman is elected president, it would be an enormous blow to sexism in general. It would have an enormous ripple effect psychologically and culturally in terms of the status of gay people...
"As far as lesbians go, a butch lesbian is seen like a man. Amongst other things — psychological and cultural factors — men don’t like to see strong women. They’re afraid of strong women. I think if you had a successful, strong woman, it just has to begin to change things. It may be a little more subtle, it may be a little more psychological and not totally a conscious thing. But in terms of cultural symbolism and changing cultural values, electing a woman would not only be a great lift for feminist goals, but very much gay rights and gay liberation."
(Programming Note: That's the last word from the East Coast. Signing off in NY.)
Most Hillary fans have made their way to the exit, but her press machine is still hard at work. They are putting both Missouri and Arizona in the "W" column for her. (Note: I don't think any news outlets have called Missouri for Hillary yet.) (UPDATE: Obama, in fact, won Missouri. Not Clinton.)
Here's what Team Hillary is saying: Southwest to Midwest, Clinton Picks Up Two More Toss Up States
MISSOURI Barack Obama outspent Hillary by $300,000 in TV ads in Missouri. He also benefited from the endorsements of high-profile surrogates across the state such as Representatives Carnahan and Clay, and Senator McCaskill, all of whom actively campaigned for him and appeared in ads on his behalf.
Despite these challenges, Hillary Clinton won this important toss-up state.
ARIZONA In addition to the endorsement of Governor Janet Napolitano, Barack Obama visited Arizona twice, spent $1.3 million in television advertisements, put an estimated 15 staff on the ground and opened two offices.
The Obama campaign is lavishing some of its cash advantage on the LGBT community with targeted ad buys in Ohio and Texas leading up to the critical March 4th primaries in both states (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote that day). According to Obama LGBT Steering Committee member Eric Stern, the campaign has just completed an ad buy with queer newspapers in the four largest LGBT markets of those two states -- Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston.
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