The Connolly question Can Jesse, a straight, 27-year-old with little referendum experience, lead the No on 1 campaign to a final victory for civil rights in Maine? BY TONY GIAMPETRUZZI

This past July, the Christian Civic League’s Michael Heath announced he had the 50,000+ signatures needed for a November 8 ballot measure to overturn state legislation passed in April 2005 that added gays and lesbians to those protected by civil-rights laws. Immediately, pundits said supporters of the bill needed to ready themselves for a dogfight. Our own Al Diamon put it this way: "Three words of advice for supporters of the gay-rights bill passed by the Legislature . . . last week: Hire Dennis Bailey."

After all, Bailey’s the big PR gun in Maine, the man who beat the casino, and Heath and his minions have already proven they could beat the snot out of Queer Nation in 1998 and 2000 when similar legislation was passed. (I, myself, lost some snot, as media director of 2000’s failed "Yes on 6" campaign.)

That’s why what happened next was a bit of a surprise. Maine Won’t Discriminate, which was admonished for what was labeled a botched campaign in 1998, wiped the dust off their still active PAC papers, came together, and hired Jesse Connolly, a 27 year-old with limited experience in ballot referenda, to lead the charge into battle.

In some ways, though, the choice makes sense. His father, the late state Representative Larry Connolly, introduced the first equal-rights legislation in 1977, in the midst of his 15-year stint as a legislator from Portland. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Connolly the younger, after attending Bates College, worked for the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, a group essentially charged with insuring a democratic majority in the statehouse. Under Connolly’s watch, that’s exactly what happened after the 2002 election.

From there, he went to work for Democratic Senate President Beverly Daggett as the communications director for the 2003 legislative session, and was then offered a position on the John Kerry for President campaign both during the 2004 primary in Maine and again during the general election when he served as the campaign’s state director.

Although slightly unassuming, Connolly has moxie. Or so says Pat Peard, who founded Maine Won’t Discriminate and who has seemingly devoted her personal and professional life to gay rights — and let’s just say that this lesbian will only take NO for an answer this time around. (For the uninitiated: A No vote keeps civil rights in place; a Yes vote overturns the civil-right bill adding gays and lesbians as a protected class.)

"He was the right fit. I had the opportunity to work with him on the Kerry/Edwards campaign, and I was very impressed," Peard says. "I think he knows how to run a campaign in Maine — he is intimately familiar with politics in Maine, and that’s just what we needed."

PROBLEMS OF THE HERE AND NOW

In four weeks, we’ll see if current organizers, a group comprising both old gay-rights stalwarts and some fresh new blood, have the mettle to overcome some age-old challenges (see "A Little History," accompanying piece) that transcend Heath and his group of supporters.

First, polls show that most Mainers already believe that gays and lesbians are protected by Maine law from being fired or kicked out of their apartments, or that they don’t believe gays and lesbians are victims of discrimination because there hasn’t been a compelling poster child for the cause since the 1984 killing of Charlie Howard in Bangor, now more a sad anecdote in gay history than a contemporary call to arms.

The fact is that, in Maine, it has always been legal to deny gays housing, a job, credit, or the right to congregate in public places because they happen to love someone of the same sex. Moreover, and for those who care this should really chafe, you can be canned even if your boss only thinks you’re gay . . . and you’d have no legal recourse.

Bowdoin College professor Chris Potholm, an expert on referenda, says that the educational hurdle is a tough one.

"If the election were held today and only the most likely voters voted, the yes vote would be successful," he says, adding that the massive media push planned by No on 1 to educate voters will have to make the difference.

"What the campaign needs is television ads that will be highly emotive, that will be powerful and that will reverse the notion that gays are not discriminated against in the state of Maine."

Second, it’s an off-year election, which means that there are few issues and no statewide candidate races driving people to the polls, a fact that is buttressed by the first challenge and that so many pro-gay laws have been passed in recent years, confusing voters into believing gay rights exist here.

"I personally would not have chosen this battlefield, this venue, and this time to advance this form of gay rights," says Potholm. That said, he thinks Maine could put this issue to bed in November in such a way that should delight the gay community.

"I think it is very definitely possible. I’ve written three books on this, and, if you run a good campaign and shift the psychographics of the mood and the issue and get your own lily pad and stay on it, you are going to be successful," Potholm says. "There are advantages to the No campaign, one of them is that a no vote is worth five percent — people will show up and say, ‘I don’t know how I feel, but it’s probably not a good idea,’ and just vote No regardless. I think there’s a lot going for the No side, if they have the enthusiasm and the focus and the votes from the people that they already know that they absolutely have to have."

THE CAMPAIGN COMETH

The big questions is, can Connolly and company come up with the goods? They say yes, and there will be a massive media buy and an aggressive field operation they say make will the campaign successful. At October 11’s filing deadline, they had $455,427 in donated money to work with, about halfway to their goal of $1 million.

What’s more, Connolly is affable, connected, and working well with his cohorts, a departure from the heads of the 2000 campaign. Further, he exudes repulsion for failure, and he has no intention of letting this be his first battle wound. He explains his strategy.

"This is a motivational-based election, not a truly persuasion-based election as most other issue and candidate campaigns tend to be," Connolly says. "The tone is driven solely by what we do on the ground, and great TV, mail, and newspaper coverage to encourage people to go out and vote. We know that we need a strong paid media presence for people to turn out and a very large field operation." He adds that the campaign’s war chest for TV ads is now "hundreds of thousands of dollars" and growing at a decent tack.

TV ads are the single most expensive part of any campaign, but everyone agrees that not just good, but laser-perfect ads are the only way this campaign will win.

Rick Gowen, a major contributor and organizer of the 2000 civil-rights campaign, points out that, despite the other foibles of "Yes on 6," it was a botched paid media buy that ultimately killed that effort.

Whether or not the current campaign learned from Yes on 6 is debatable, but they do know that, particularly in Maine, there are a lot of Lazy Boy voters, and fundraising efforts must reflect that, especially when the opposing side is likely to also utilize the TV for their scary gay-marriage message.

"What is concerning to me is that the far right has upped the ante," says Potholm, "Especially with their notion that this has something to do with gay marriage. If this ends up being a referendum on gay marriage, the Yes vote could be successful. So, I think there is a danger in placing too much emphasis on the so-called ground game. A ground game in Maine can only add one or maybe two percent to the vote. That isn’t to denigrate a strong field effort because if there’s a tie, that’s an important one or two percent. What will really gain the points is television time, high production, high impact TV. Ninety percent or more of referenda in Maine are decided by TV not the ground game."

To be sure, most financial resources are being socked away for TV, but Connolly disagrees that a field campaign has only a trivial impact on the vote, and he says that field efforts, including house parties, fair visits, phone banking, and literature drops, are just as important this time around as ever before. After all, remember that the 2000 effort failed by less than one percent, and the 1998 campaign lost by less than two percent — if history is accurate, the No on 1 folks know that a field campaign that adds a one-percent push to their side equals a victory.

"We have organizers in territories from Kittery to Fort Kent and everywhere in between," says Connolly. "I can’t say what went right and what went wrong in other campaigns, but we’re trying to get people to vote early through absentee voting or in-person early voting because turnout is so critical.

"As I mentioned, this is a motivational campaign, and we need to encourage people to go out and vote, and that takes more than just TV, it takes a personal touch. Our model shows that we need to be very active in the communities that support us, to convince people to vote and go remind them this is the most important thing they can do. This is much more of a statewide campaign than what I have heard of as far as past campaigns have been. We’ve been at everything from events in Bangor to the Blue Hill Fair to everything in between."