Campaigns & Elections' Politics - February 2008 - (Page 13) Backstory They’re Baaaaaack: Return of the ’06 ballot issues B y Dan S e l i g s o n hen voters head to the polls in November to vote for the next president, some might experience a sense of déjà vu. “My gut is that this time, everything is amplified,” says Jennie Drage-Bowser, a state initiatives expert for the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. “There are going to be more measures than in 2006. Whether they’ll be successful won’t stop anyone from trying.While 2006 was a big year, 2008 should be record-breaking in every way.” Voters passed 20 of 79 initiatives in 2006—the third highest number of initiatives on the ballot since 1904. Here are four issues likely to come up again this cycle: W Immigration Immigration-related referenda have been a fixture on Arizona ballots since the beginning of the decade. In 2006, the state made English its official language. It also limited the punitive damages that could be collected by people who entered the country illegally and prohibited bail for undocumented people charged with some types of felonies. Voters loved all three referenda, which passed with more than 70 percent of the vote. So look for similar measures in Arizona and elsewhere. Supporters of Sen. Fred Thompson lost a candidate after the South Carolina primary. Matt Leonardo lost a client. A partner in the political advertising firm Revolution Media Group, Leonardo had been a strategist for the Thompson campaign. He spoke with Politics magazine about what’s working this year—and what isn’t—on the paid media front. Politics: Looking back, would you have done anything differently in this campaign? Leonardo: Not really. Thompson has far more command presence than the others running, and we capitalized on that with traditional candidate-to-camera ads. Basically, he was so strong that my job was not to muck it up. What we could have used was more money. Politics: Are there ad campaigns for other candidates that you especially admire? Leonardo: Obama has an ability to show presence on film and connect with a crowd, and that’s coming through in his ads. Authenticity—that’s where John McCain is doing so well. His ads are very direct, very straightforward, and that’s a reflection of who he is. Politics: Is there an ad campaign that just isn’t working? Leonardo: Giuliani’s creative has been all over the place. He was candidate-to-camera at first, and that didn’t work. Now they’ve gone more conceptual, and his numbers are still going down. All that tells me the Giuliani people haven’t yet figured out what works for him. For all these candidates, though, we probably overplay the impact of paid media. These national races are really more about earned media. Abortion That perennial favorite, abortion, will also play a big role in 2008. California voters will have a second chance to enact a law requiring parental notification before abortions. That same proposal failed in 2006 by a margin of 54 to 46. And local groups in South Dakota are trying to get the 16,776 signatures needed to get an abortion ban onto the ballot in November. The ban was rejected in 2006. Left Field “I have a telegram from the White House. They’re going to have to change the name of that building if Obama’s elected.” — William R. Farr, a Colorado businessman and Barack Obama supporter, who later apologized for the joke he made during the Western Stock Show’s annual banquet Taxes While efforts to pass taxpayer bill of rights (TABOR) laws in states met with mixed results in 2006, at least one state, Maine, will likely have a measure on ballots this year. TABOR initiatives—which require that tax increases be tied to the rate of population growth, inflation and property values—were a defining national issue for some conservative groups in 2006. Voters in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon rejected TABOR laws in 2006, but “it’s not a dead issue, just wounded,” says Patrick Gleason of Americans for Tax Reform. TABOR-inspired property-tax rollbacks may appear on ballots again in Arizona, Florida and elsewhere. And repeat efforts to add taxes to cigarettes to fund healthcare initiatives could be on the ballot in Nevada. Gay Marriage While gay marriage was a defining issue in the 2004 presidential election and a rallying point for Christian conservatives and others, it does not appear to be a defining issue in 2008. Kristina Wilfore, who heads the progressive Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, notes that six states passed gay marriage bans in 2006. So far, three states may have gay marriage bans on ballots this year: Arkansas, California and Florida. February 2008 Politics 13
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