In the Belly of No on 8

 The Reverend Jonipher Kwong helps with the phone bank.

The No on 8 campaign headquarters is located on San Francisco’s Market Street in a space that was once the home of Tower Records. Dance mix CDs and DVD displays have been replaced with table after table of volunteers, who on the last Wednesday before the November 4 election are working their cell phones to encourage Californians to vote no on the ballot measure. If passed, Proposition 8 would ban same-sex marriages in California just months after the state supreme court voted narrowly to strike down laws preventing gay and lesbian couples from getting hitched.

Considering the polls showing 8’s potential passage, the onslaught of out-of-state money raised by the Yes on 8 campaign, and the damage done by Yes on 8 ads featuring scared parents and vulnerable children, I expect to find a much more tense, scared office. But the receptionist seems to represent the energy of place: focused, businesslike, and surprisingly calm.

I’m there to see Patrick Guerriero, who less than a month ago became No on 8’s campaign director. The former president of the Log Cabin Republicans, Guerriero now runs the Colorado-based Gill Action Fund, an issue advocacy organization founded by gay software mogul Tim Gill that promotes LGBT political rights. After being ushered into a smaller set of offices that are nonetheless full with No on 8’s media team and a “war room”–like conference call among No on 8 staffers, Guerriero comes out of an even smaller room, working his BlackBerry. It’s clear that if you told Guerriero six weeks ago he would be in California working full-time on the fight of his life, he would have said you’re crazy.

“I just came to visit in late September to check on the status of the campaign and to offer support from Gill Action,” he said. “Right about the time I came here there was a growing awareness the Mormon church had basically made an unprecedented financial commitment to raising a record amount of money in a social issue campaign.”

During the summer, No on 8 organizers were estimating $20 million would be needed to defeat the amendment, and with early polls showing a lack of support for Proposition 8 and a fairly muted opposition that hadn’t yet launched a media campaign, the No campaign appeared on track.

But the October fund-raising report brought No on 8 supporters cataclysmic news. Proposition supporters, with major help from very organized out-of-state Mormon donors, had raised $25 million and boasted $12 million in the bank, while No on 8 had raised only $15 million with a measly $1 million in the bank.