The Floundering Yes on 8 Campaign: One Million Missing Lawn Signs Found in China

The ridicule cometh (8.00 / 3)

I hope folks handling those signs remember to wash their hands before they eat anything.

Also -- define "irony."

Low-paid Chinese workers (who cannot unionize) manufacturing campaign signs (when they themselves cannot protest anything in China) for a campaign aimed at taking away rights to "uphold" good ol' American values?

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by: Matt Ortega @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:03:42 PM UTC

More on the Morman Master Plan... (8.00 / 1)

... apparently gone awry:

From MyDD:

July 28, 2008

Dear Presidents:

Yesterday a wonderful meeting was held with the eight Area Directors in Northern California. These are amazingly powerful people. The Area folks represent the grassroots effort for the passage of the Proposition and their responsibility overlays each Coordinating Council. This was a great and powerful meeting. I assure you that the LDS folks who work closely with or who are on the Board directly of the coalition are very impressive and politically experienced folks. It was great to see.

I have a few answers to frequent questions that are being asked and I feel that if I were you, I'd wanna know. Hope that this helps:

Organization, it' s a little confusing!? Answer: The Brethren have felt that the best way to organize and pass the Proposition is to have an Ecclesiastical arm and a Grassroots arm to organization. Elder Dalton, Area Seventy and Chair of California for every thing, reports to the Brethren. I assist him. We work with coordinating councils, all 17 in California and then Stake Presidents and Bishops, rank and file. The second leg to organization is grassroots. This is done so as to engage as many like minded folks who are not LDS, but whom will help. The senior folks who run the grassroots are LDS at the coalition and are headed by Glen Greener and Gary Lawrence. These folks are assisted in Nor Cal by Boyd Smith, and in turn by Area, then Regional Directors. The regional directors overlay Stakes. Below are Zip Code Supervisors by wards.

What is the role of grassroots? Answer: The grassroots folks in each Stake, Regional Directors will train zip code supervisors. Their goal, is to find the voters who will vote yes. It is not to persuade others ... but to find those who will vote yes. The ZCS will seek, with the RD help, to encourage as many as the ward members and like minded people as possible, to accept eight different responsibilities, all from walking a precinct to determine folks opinions (not to sell), to calling, to placing signage, to a myriad of essential tasks that Area Directors will oversee. Please know Presidents, that the RDs/ZCS's will be contacting many many people to accept responsibilities. We hope that you are fine with this happening without the Stake President or Bishop approving each assignment! We assume that you are ok with that!!

Will like minded people from other congregations really join with us? Answer: There was a conference call last week with 1200 pastors in California with James Dobson as the featured speaker. This Thursday, there is another conference call with 2000 California clergy. It appears that the effort on the part of like minded people is huge compared to eight years ago. The Area Directors and Regional Directors will be aware of contacting the congregations for a joint effort.  Walking the precincts in particular is where we all may have an opportunity to grab a good friend of another religion and walk with them. If LDS people want to participate in that conference and know of the site of broadcast, they are welcome to go.

What is the timeline from here for the next few weeks.? Answer:

1.  Congregations of LDS all having been taught the doctrine in July so that they may see the importance of fundraising and grassroots participation. Some Stakes have called all Stake Council and wives as well as several folks who may be able to contribute not on the Council. The Stake President, in that Cottage Meeting, has asked for their support. A great part of a fund raising effort, accomplished in one night.

2.  August 1st:  All Regional Directors have been called and contacted by Area Directors for training.

3.  August 3rd:  Training of Regional Directors commences by the Area Directors

4.  August 1st-10th:  Zip Code Supervisors are in place and are to be trained by Regional Directors..

5.  August 16th:  The First of three Saturday precinct walks are to be held under the direction of the Regional Directors.

6.  August 23rd:  The Second of the Saturday precinct walks are to be held.

7.  Sept. 22nd:  One million signs will be put up in yards around the state at 7:00am.

Other timeline events will be planned and executed and you will be updated.

That's enough. if I caused more questions than answered, please hit me back.

Thanks for all that you and have on your plate. The Lord will make up whatever we all feel we are lacking.

Brother Packer

Disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign. These opinions are my own and are not necessarily those of my employer.  

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by: Eden James @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:23:51 PM UTC

I wonder who will file the IRS complaint. (0.00 / 0)

Because this sure looks like the LDS churches in California are using tax-exempt church resources to organize in support of a piece of legislation.

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by: jsw @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:31:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

My bad (0.00 / 0)

I'm informed that the prohibition is generally limited to candidate support only.

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by: jsw @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:58:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I wondered when this would happen... (8.00 / 1)

The outsourcing, that is. Most commercial printing (books, comic books and so on) is done overseas, either in China or Canada...and I wondered when a political campaign would buy something from an outsourced vendor to save money.

The thing is, I can't imagine 1,000,000 lawn signs being that much cheaper in China, once you factor in the time constraint (which these bozos bungled, and I'm glad they did) and the shipping. Political printing often has to get the job done a lot faster than a commercial job anyway.

Plus it's not like they couldnt' get these in the USA....this is a multi-tiered FAIL and I'm just glad it happened to them. Sucks to be a Yes on 8 supporter!

--
www.gregdewar.com

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by: gregdewar.com @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:35:29 PM UTC

One Million... ?! (0.00 / 0)

Is it just me, or does that seem like a very high number, even for a well-funded statewide campaign?  I mean, those suckers start to cost some money in bulk...  when you factor in the metal stand thingies, or even stakes.

Does anyone on this site have expertise to estimate what that might cost?  And yeah, economies of scale seem to hurt them here, especially with regard to moving them around the state from Long Beach, or wherever they take delivery.

And does anyone find the image of Gina with 1 mil yard signs in her home kind of amusing?

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by: slowpitch @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 20:43:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Just a guess (8.00 / 1)

But this woman may have an interesting lesson in intolerance heading her way.

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by: Lucas O'Connor @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 22:11:48 PM UTC

Ha ha! (0.00 / 0)

Nothing but what they deserve for exporting their hatred.
I'd like to assume that all the decent union shops in this country rejected the order.  

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by: shayera @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 23:20:55 PM UTC

Odd... (0.00 / 0)

Gina Downey doesn't seem to have contributed to Protectmarriage.com:
http://spreadsheets.google.com...

www.mormonsfor8.com  

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by: csa @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 04:05:27 AM UTC

Nominated for most amusing diary title of the campaign (0.00 / 0)

And there's even a God's Army connection?  Too funny.

One minor quibble, Julia:

"God's Army," the low-budget drama about missionaries proselytizing in Hollywood that [Richard] Dutcher wrote, directed and starred in, garnered nearly $3 million at the box office, a smash by indie-movie standards.

Asked about it now, Dutcher (who has since left the church) says: "It's like having porn on your résumé."

As far as Gena Downey is concerned, I wonder how "previously worked for Disney and the Yes on 8 campaign" is going to look on her résumé?

twitter.com/ChinoBlanco | youtube.com/ChinoBlanco

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by: Chino Blanco @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 04:08:56 AM UTC

Floundering? (0.00 / 0)

Floundering? Umm..not so much..didn't even need the signs.

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by: giddymoon @ Wed Nov 05, 2008 at 06:11:08 AM UTC