Watch the ad and then I’ll pick it apart.

I note NOM has blocked me from commenting on their YouTube videos. A pity so now I’ll just call them out on the blog, and email them to Maggie Gallagher.

Ok, here’s the pick-apart:

NOM is playing apples to oranges here. Not only are they comparing the gubernatorial race to the lieutenant gubernatorial race, but they completely discount one little fact when they say Governor Chafee doesn’t have a mandate.

There were SEVEN candidates for governor. So NOM had more than enough opportunity to field candidates, I don’t know why they are crying about this now. And as to the Lieutenant Governor’s race, Elizabeth Roberts won re-election by 54.5%.

NOM is dead wrong. Even their assertion that 80% of RI’ers want this on the ballot. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I got the survey call on this performed by Quest Research. They’re a local polling company. It’s a company that still uses an @verizon.net email address, how much more fly-by-night could you get when it’s $5 to $6 a month to host your own domain. The owner is a man by the name of Victor Profughi. Mr. Profughi holds a Phd in political science.

Anyhow here’s some interesting reading about the studies (Multiples) conducted by Profughi and Quest Research:

It turns out that the polls in question were commissioned by NOM-RI, the group opposing same-sex marriage. Christopher C. Plante, the group’s executive director, said there were three surveys done by Quest Research, which is based in Rhode Island.

I joked that the 80 was a transposition error. But the questions are in fact loaded to the gills. A loaded question leads the respondent to answer in the way in which the pollster wants them to answer.

Most people are dumb-fuck ignorant about what it takes to get a question on the ballot here in RI. We don’t have citizen initiative here which I consider a blessing as we’ve seen the idiocy of the citizen initiative process in both California and New Hampshire.

But the smoking gun is who sponsored the surveys. It was Christopher Plante of NOM that did so. Now if Profughi and Co. had just gone out and surveyed for the hell of it, they’d probably do a sample size a little more than 400 people. But that’s all that answered the ‘survey’. I think they made some extrapolation errors too. I also believe that of the 400, about 399 came from NOM’s mailing list in the state.

So NOM is totally off base with this ad. But do contact the Governors office at 401-222-2080, the Speaker’s office at 401-222-2447 (He shares this line with Majority Leader Matiello.) and the Senate President’s office at 401-222-6655. You can also email the Speaker as rep-fox@rilin.state.ri.us and the Senate President at sen-paivaweed@rilin.state.ri.us

Let them know that as usual, NOM is full of shit.