The Postmortem
The extent and intensity of the industry's efforts surprised Proposition 5's proponents. As Hanauer explained,
I think we weren't prepared psychologically or politically for what hit us. I mean we were a bit naive in those days. We were just a bunch of citizens trying to get clear indoor air and who could be against that? If people want to smoke, they can wait and go outside. What's the big deal? We heard the first tobacco industry ads on the radio against us, months and months in advance.
― 17 ―They started advertising even before we qualified for the ballot. …They wanted to get the public questioning what we were doing as early as possible. …We laughed at the ads…we were naive in terms of just how sophisticated the industry really was and how they could turn the public against what the public had thought was a good idea.[4]
Proposition 5 did have some vulnerabilities that made it open to attack by the industry. In particular, the specific exceptions to the requirement that public places provide nonsmoking sections were ridiculed by the industry. For example, rock concerts, professional bowling and wrestling matches, pool halls, and gaming halls were exempted. The tobacco industry latched onto this distinction in a biting series of radio advertisements ridiculing the initiative.
Even in defeat Loveday believed that something had been accomplished. He observed, “Prior to Proposition 5, people who were concerned about nonsmokers' rights were looked on as real kooks; maybe you'd read something about it on the 42nd page. That's not true anymore; it's a very respectable issue. We have now gotten the point that people's cigarette smoke is harmful to the nonsmokers. And I think we've laid the groundwork where we can have something like this passed in the future in California and other places.”[13] Indeed, since strategists for the tobacco industry knew that people did not approve of secondhand smoke, the campaign against Proposition 5 had to acknowledge that secondhand smoke was bad while claiming that Proposition 5 was worse. Pepples acknowledged the industry's vulnerability in California: “After election surveys show that 71% of the electorate say they would support `some regulation' of smoking in public places.”[6] In the process of defeating Proposition 5, however, the tobacco industry ran the largest public awareness campaign on secondhand smoke the world had ever seen.
While the tobacco industry did what it had to do to win, there were limits to the strategies it would pursue. Attacking the Legislature could have helped defeat the initiative, but this strategy was rejected because the industry was worried about offending its defenders in the Legislature, where it had historically been well protected. According to Pepples,
Woodward & McDowell very much wanted to carry a theme in the advertising which was a parody on the legislature. The opinion surveys indicated that the voters currently hold the legislature in very low esteem. The proponents had begun to respond to our original message that this was a bad law, poorly drafted. They conceded that it had some flaws but said not to worry, the legislature will take care of any flaw by amendment. Woodward &
― 18 ―McDowell, therefore, urged a direct attack on the legislature to take advantage of the negative voter attitudes toward the legislature and to crowd the proponents into a corner. The companies differed in their reaction but after internal discussion, it was agreed that the tobacco industry must live with the California legislature for years to come and should not damage its relations by supporting advertising which made fun of the legislature.[6]
This caution proved to be a wise move, since the California Legislature consistently supported the tobacco industry on a wide range of issues over the years, in particular with regard to diverting Proposition 99 funds away from tobacco control. As always, the tobacco industry was thinking in the long term.
Loveday would get a chance to try again in just two years, when he, Hanauer, and their compatriots presented California's voters with Proposition 10.