I spent a few minutes talking with Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, after she gave a rip-roaring introduction for Carrie Prejean at the Values Voter Summit. First, however, she expressed some disappointment that TWI wasn’t a gay publication. “I love the gay press,” said Gallagher. “I really am impressed with gay journalists, as a group. I like reading the marriage issue in the gay press because they cover it as if what happens matters, whereas if you read The New York Times, it’s always about how this is going to affect who gets elected president.”
Fair enough — my questions were about NOM’s chances of winning a November 2009 gay marriage votein Maine, and about whether pro-gay marriage campaigners were making the right moves there. “I’m pretty confident that, as in California, we’re going to win,” said Gallagher. “We’re in much better shape in Maine than we were in California at a similar point. We were ten points down on September 1, 2008 and we won. I saw a poll yesterday that had us up two points in Maine.”
Gallagher also dismissed a TV adby Equality Maine, a pro-gay marriage group that beat pro-traditional marriage forces to the airwaves. “I think that ad is not very effective,” she said. “I think that’s a very soft-focus, nice, pleasant ad, but I don’t think it changed any minds one way or another. If I was them, I wouldn’t be spending money there.”