Patrick Guerriero Lays Out No on 8 "Path to Victory"

The No on 8
campaign’s new director, Patrick Guerriero, laid out
a “path to victory” on Tuesday during a
weekly phone call with LGBT reporters, calling on
every one of the roughly one million LGBT Californians to donate money to defeat Proposition
8, which would amend the state constitution to ban
same-sex marriage.

"If every single
LGBT adult would, over the next couple of days, make a
donation to this campaign, we will win,” he said.
“And if they don't, we will lose.” He
noted that California has roughly one million LGBT
folks and only about 30,000 California residents have given
to the campaign to date.

Guerriero, who
said he had been asked to step in during the final weeks
of the drive to defeat Prop. 8 and was temporarily on leave
from the Gill Action Fund, delivered a classic good
news/bad news conference call.

On the positive
side, donations have been pouring in at a rate of about
$1 million per day ever since No on 8 sounded the alarm
bells last week that the campaign was $10 million
behind the opposition in funding and about five points
down in the polls.

“That's a
remarkable feat," he said. “But the challenge is, we
literally need to keep that pace up every day. In order to
win, we need to raise $1 million a day through the
election to be up on air [and] to be competitive."

Another plus:
Internal polls indicate that when voters get equal exposure
to the pro-Prop. 8 ads and “Vote No” ads, they
come down on the side of defeating the anti-gay
marriage amendment.

“Our
messages are working,” he said. “Voters move
to no on Prop. 8 when they see and hear our TV ads,
but we simply need to be in more places and have
greater penetration in our TV buys, and we need to also ramp
up not just on TV but on radio.

"Getting the
resources to be on TV and radio and match our opponents
in an air war is the path to victory, it's that black and
white," he concluded.

In addition to
seeking donations from ever-day folks, Guerriero said he
and everybody else associated with the campaign were making
fund-raising calls fast and furiously to big-dollar
donors. “I can tell you that I think you're
going to see some breakthrough gifts in the next couple of
days," he said, adding that some people may have been
unclear about the urgency of the campaign after being
lulled into complacency by early polls showing voters
supported marriage equality.