The Empire is Striking Back a lot lately. This time with a radio ad buy with gems like these:
In the 60-second ad, a female narrator says, "Imagine coming out of surgery, and the nurse caring for you was high. Or having to work hard on your job to make up for a co-worker who shows up high on pot. It could happen in California if Proposition 19 passes."
The LA Times is on record as being in support of No on 19. I wonder if the editorial board agrees with this radio ad's premises?
One could suppose that the ad is intended to frighten soccer moms or senior citizens who are unaware how easy marijuana already is to procure in our state. If you have $60-150 and a ID, you can become legally licensed to purchase pot. Just ask Pulitzer-winner Steve Lopez about his story. Of course, he got his medical recommendation first.
Meanwhile, amidst all of the doom and gloom surrounding the recent LA Times poll that showed prop 19 trailing badly, internal polls were released showing it to be far more competitive.
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"As the polling shows, there still seems to be somewhat of a social stigma attached to marijuana and the politics surrounding it," said Dan Newman, a political strategist working with the Yes On 19 campaign. "We're confident that when Californians find themselves in the privacy of voting booths on Nov. 2, they will vote to end decades of failed and harmful marijuana policies. Very few people think the current policy is working."
The results affirm earlier suggestions by New York Times analyst Nate Silver, the blog FireDogLake and others identifying a so-called "Reverse Bradley Effect" indicating that voters may be uncomfortable telling strangers how they would vote on controversial policies.
The Yes On 19 internal poll was conducted by EMC Research on October 13-14 and had a total sample size of 1,403 respondents. The margin of error is +/- 2.6 percentage points. The full results can be viewed at: http://www.YesOn19.com/...
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A good diary was posted yesterday here as well.
But if you think a couple hundred thousand isn't much $$, given the slush fund that Chamber of Commerce, Rove, et al are throwing around right now, consider: The No on 19 campaign only has about $50k cash on hand. This ad buy from the Chamber is worth 5 times as much as COH for No on 19. So in the context of the race, this is a HUGE contribution. It's what they considered enough to 'kill' 19. If they thought a full half million $ was needed, they would have dropped that. But their assumption is probably this: stoners aren't that motivated because marijuana is already extremely easy to get, and legalization will only drop prices for your casual users. They assume that not enough in California care about the history, politics, racism, or violence of Prohibition. And that's why top Democratic politicians and donors sat out Proposition 19 this year. It wall take more deaths of citizens in America and Mexico, more wasteful spending in prison-industrial complex, and more suffering. The cynical assumption is that Americans only learn after much pain has been applied, after enormous amounts of damage are done (See: Iraq, Bush, ongoing Afghanistan, healthcare, etc etc). I fear that assumption may win out this year. Which is why I'd love to attend the March to Keep Fear Alive, ha.
Meanwhile, the wingnut in LA who got hundreds of pot dispensaries shut down is running to replace Jerry Brown in the AG office. Just yesterday, news broke that this wingnut took money froman oil firm that his own LA D.A. office prosecuted. That's stayin real classy.