Petrelis Files

No on 8 Leader to Audit No on 8

Let's try and follow the status of the two separate audits, one independent, one not so, of Equality California and the No on 8 campaign.

Veteran lesbian journalist Karen Ocamb, in an extensive and well-worth reading think-piece in which she reflects on the recent Equality Summit in LA, shared a nugget of news that ostensibly moves the accountability narrative forward. She writes of her announcements at the summit, over at the Bilerico site:

And I noted that Michael Fleming of the David Bohnett Foundation was conducting an independent audit (with UCLA) of the campaign.

Ocamb omitted the fact that Fleming was one of the 16 members of the No on 8 Executive Committee, and I wish she had informed readers of this fact, because we all need to know that a key architect of the failed campaign is executing the audit of the campaign.

Some critics might see this audit on par with Gov. Sarah Palin's state investigation of her Trooper-gate scandal, in which a board appointed by her found her innocent of wrong-doing. Defenders of the No on 8 leaders probably see no problem with Fleming doing the audit because he's from the non-profit world.

Regardless, I've not heard a word about when Fleming's audit will conclude and if the findings will be made public.

This campaign audit is wholly separate from the independent probe of just Equality California's role, which was first revealed in an chat between Japhy Grant of the Queerty.com site and Geoff Kors of EQCA:

Queerty: No on 8 has announced that there will be an independent analysis of the campaign, but we still don't know who is going to do the analysis and when we can expect it. Is there any more information?

Kors: Well, I know it's going to happen. We're finding people who have run similar campaigns, but it's important that we choose people who were not involved in the campaign at all ... I think it's important that we do that and that there's nothing about how we lost that could, you know, be used against us in future campaigns.

In his standard weasel way of operating when accountability is the topic, Kors didn't say if the full analysis would be shared with the gay public.

After that online interview, the Bay Area Reporter wrote about the firm hired to do the analysis:

[Kors] said EQCA has retained Woodward and McDowell to do an assessment.

Ted Green with Woodward and McDowell said that the company would be doing a report for EQCA that looks at EQCA's role in the No on Prop 8 campaign.

"That's a very separate and different animal from an overall analysis of the campaign," Green said.

I have to say, observing from a far distance the machinations at the LA summit of the gay leaders who devised the losing strategy, the accountability advocates who literally stood up to demand answers, and the younger gay generation with their electronic toys and their web sites is like watching cats playing ping-pong.

Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but I would like just once to watch these hip cats hit the ping-pong ball around in San Francisco.