Last week, Paul Shapiro dropped by my place in Santa Cruz for a couple hours. Most of you know Paul from being the most frequent guest on my podcast, and his main work is running the factory farming campaign for the Humane Society of the United States.
Paul has been working around the clock on Prop 2 for months now, and I was flattered that he spent probably his only downtime in October visiting me. During his visit, he said something that made a huge impression. He said that, without question, November 4 would either be the best day or the most emotionally devastating day of his entire life. There would be no in between.
At the time, Prop 2 was up substantially in the polls, but the opposition was just days away from launching an all-out spending blitz on deceptive TV ads to sway California voters. With all the effort that Paul and others have put in, those of us on the sidelines need to make sure the campaign has the resources to fire back.
Today, I just read a bulletin from Wayne Pacelle, the head of HSUS, and it appears that Prop 2′s funding needs have become critical. Wayne writes:
I don’t often do something like this, but we’re in the fight of our lives right now trying to pass an historic law — Proposition 2 in California — that will help 20 million animals. If it passes, it will lead to powerful humane reforms nationwide.
I just got this message from Jennifer Fearing, the YES! on Prop 2 campaign manager, who’s working around the clock to get Proposition 2 passed. And, to be perfectly honest, we’re facing a severe shortage of funds to keep our TV ads on the air next week.
Read her message to me below and then please, give whatever you can to help us finish this fight.
And here’s the letter from Jennifer that inspired Wayne’s appeal:
From: Jennifer Fearing
Date: Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 8:05 PM
Subject: Our TV ad is about to be yanked
To: Wayne Pacelle
Hi Wayne,
Here are the Prop 2 TV ad numbers you asked for. We’re facing a fairly imminent cash crunch — we have about $300,000 on hand now, and that should cover us for the cable TV ads in California for the remainder of this week.
It’s next week that I’m most concerned about, and it’s the last week of Prop 2′s big TV ad push before the election. We need to raise an additional $250,000 over the next 48 hours so we can reach voters in the smaller TV markets (who right now are getting bombarded with commercials from our opponents.) We have to pay the stations on Thursday!
Do you think you could go out to Humane Society supporters tomorrow and explain where things stand so we can raise the additional funds we need to finish up our TV ad campaign?
I know it’s a difficult time for folks and people have given so much already, but if we don’t raise these funds for next week then our TV ads are going to be yanked off the air. I know you know this, but those ads are the most effective way for us to reach the maximum number of voters, and after all our work, I’d hate to give the big agribusiness goons a leg up.
Let me know what you think and thanks,
Jennifer
Please donate whatever you can. We’ve come too far on this campaign to fail now, and letting America’s factory farming interests defeat a campaign of this magnitude would be catastrophic.
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