NOM NOM NOMing through more coverage of NOM’s first day on tour in California

By Adam Bink

Column as I see ’em:

• I didn’t have a chance to write this last night, but my first thought on day one of the tour is that NOM is just incredibly lazy. For those who have knocked on doors in an electoral campaign, you know the value of targeting — you target your persuadables and your lean voters, for example. You don’t just walk into your local farmacia and start talking to people — it’s an inefficient use of time. They might not even be U.S. citizens.

Except that’s what NOM is doing. Nearly all of their stops are in random parks all over the state where there could be anyone — from a group of ex-convicts to the local weekly gay book club meeting. Yesterday night’s stop was at an On The Border, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain filled with… wait for it… white folks. One stop, tomorrow morning, is at the Jelly Belly factory. Is this some Latino tourist hotbed and we just don’t know it yet?

One commenter wrote last night why we’re doing this if no one shows up. This is exactly why we’re doing it — to show how this is a waste of people’s time and money. It’s lazy organizing and part of the reason we’re doing this so they never again can get that $1 million to launch a campaign that includes a fancy bus tour with paid staff. Or be the largest single contributor to Yes on 1 in Maine. Or run misleading but effective ads during the Prop 8 fight. On and on.

• Speaking of Jelly Belly, we here at P8TT/NTT are officially inquiring into what exactly the company thinks of this tour stop on their property, as well as their positions on LGBT equality, Prop 8, and the like. Stay tuned.

• Here’s the first on-the-road video produced by the Vota Tus Valores team. It looks like it was filmed by a hummingbird observing the scene.

• P8TT/NTT friend Karen Ocamb has her take on the first day, including more background on Alfonso Aguilar and our old friend Brian Brown’s statement on the tour.

• Yesterday, NOM filed a lawsuit that would allow it to flaunt Rhode Island’s election laws by running ads (targeting the gubernatorial race, where two pro-marriage equality candidates, Frank Caprio and Lincoln Chafee, are leading in the polls) without disclosing contributors or complying with spending laws. It is pretty remarkable how much they spend on legal fees, given the numerous lawsuits of this nature they’re filed in several states, not to mention ethics violations in places like Maine.

• The silence from @NOMTweets and the NOM blog on the California tour sure is deafening. I don’t see a single post or tweet in the last week, at least. Do they not want to be closely associated with a mess?

• They did find time last night to trumpet their several days-old “dynamite” amicus brief filing in the 9th Circuit, though. My favorite line:

They want this court to short-circuit the hard task of persuading their fellow citizens that their unions ARE marriages, by asking this court to re-educate the voters and re-assign the meaning of a word.

To which I respond with the quote of the year in my book:

“Most people use the term “judicial activism” to explain decisions they don’t like.” — Ted Olson, August 8, 2010

• We’ll have coverage today from our NOM Tour Tracker team at the events — if you can call them that — at the State Capitol in Sacramento, along with Yuba City, Davis (just before tonight’s California gubernatorial debate), and elsewhere. Coverage from the first three stops will be up late this afternoon, and from the last three stops this evening.