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The National Organization for Marriage just suffered an embarrassing loss in an Iowa special election which would have allowed the organization to challenge marriage equality in the state had its candidate won.
According to the Iowa Independent, NOM spent over $30,000 pushing Republican candidate Cindy Golding in a special election for a state senatorial seat.
But it wasn’t enough because Golding came up short against Liz Mathis – 44% to 56% of the vote.
NOM sought to make the election a referendum about marriage equality, a strategy which may have backfired on the group.
It’s too early to tell why Golding lost – even though Mathis was leading in the polls – but when it’s all said and done, this election was probably decided by a mysterious robocall which all but sank Golding’s chances:
No one knows who the group is behind the robocall but at press time, NOM is already whining about the call being a dirty trick which served to undermine Golding.
Had Golding won, state Republicans would have had enough votes to send a referendum on marriage equality to the voters. In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court made a ruling which legalized gay marriage in the state.
11 Comments
Who knew: bigotry is expensive and fruitless business investment.
When a dirty trick backfires, blame in on the opponent?
It should not be hard to find out who was behind the robocalls.
Did they want to win?
It might be that the last thing they wanted to do was defuse this issue before the ’12 general election.
As I mentioned earlier, this turn of events is not good news for Romney’s prospects in the fast approaching caucus.
It’s tougher than you think, in this post-Citizens United world. The robocalls I received in Ohio had spoofed phone numbers in some cases and they gave no clue about who was responsable in the message.
Boxturtle (You’d have to pry the info from the phone company)
Noise like this really doesn’t matter. The supremes will decide. Haters can vote all the state laws, etc they wish.
The fight will be when Walker is presented to the supremes. And they’re going to need better arguments than they’ve got to sway Kennedy.
I hope this means that Iowa’s “mind your own business” attitude wins out over the churches.
Boxturtle (Could we get some of the haters to read and understand the constitution?)
Anonymous, Brad Friedman are two entities that come to mind that have their own ways in the post-Citizens United world.
In Iowa this “noise” does matter, at least in the short term.
An embarrassing loss for NOM: one of a series. Collect them all!
Are they on Baseball cards? We can trade. I have two extra Washington State cards for a new Iowa card.
It’s MARRIAGE EQUALITY!!!!!, not “gay marriage”. The distinction is important.
Both terms were used in the story above. Marriage equality is certainyl what we’re after, but “gay marriage” is the term that people google. Sometimes there’s utility in using both terms.
gay marriage 29,600,000 results
marriage equality 5,570,000 results