Tobacco War: "d0e926"

Lessons from the Proposition P Campaign

The early and prominent role of the industry turned out to be an important election issue. In analyzing their loss, a Nelson-Padberg report concluded,

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“If signatures could have been gathered through volunteers, that would have delayed the issue and perhaps prevented it from ever becoming central. If money could have been raised from non-tobacco interests in the city of San Francisco, that would have prevented it from becoming a key issue; or if some other issue could have been made more important to reporters, that might have shifted or softened the focus, perhaps preventing the money issue from being so critical later in the campaign.”^[26] Tobacco control advocates had learned how to frame the issue as one of outside interference by the tobacco industry.

Nelson-Padberg's report also complimented the Yes on P campaign: “The Yes on Proposition P campaign was well managed, tightly focused, selected the issues appropriate to the problem and made efficient use of their limited resources…unlike prior campaigns [for Propositions 5 and 10], they focused clearly on the health issue in the final days of the campaign, bringing the public's attention to the most devastating argument available to them.”^[26]

Hanauer believed that at least part of the reason for the proponents' success lay in the growing sophistication of the press: “The industry had a little more unsavory reputation by this time. And I think the press was much more sympathetic by the time Prop P came around and much more attuned to questions about finance, tobacco industry lies, and the health issues.”^[4]

On the other hand, Nelson-Padberg called proponents “unscrupulous” because of their last two mailers—one detailing tobacco industry lies and one featuring stars who had died of lung cancer, thus implying that “Proposition P would somehow fight lung cancer.”^[26] About the former mailer, the Nelson-Padberg report said, “Although all of their allegations were fabrications, the piece was very effective in hammering home their message.”^[26] The report also identified other problems that the tobacco industry had failed to overcome. For example, the Bay Area was home to the leadership of the Proposition 10 campaign, Loveday, Hanauer, Glantz, and Weisberg, who “could dedicate all of their efforts to the 380,000 registered voters in San Francisco, rather than the 11,000,000 registered voters statewide. Additionally, 10 of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor were publicly committed to support the smoking control ordinance, creating a most difficult political dynamic to overcome.”^[26] Operating in a more limited media market, proponents could present their message—in news stories as well as paid advertising—more effectively than they had done in the statewide Proposition 5 and 10 efforts. Hanauer agreed: “Certainly $125,000

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in one city and county went a lot further than a half a million statewide.”^[4]

The report on Proposition P prepared by V. Lance Tarrance outlined for the industry three of its key problems. First, the tobacco industry's involvement was not a strong reason for people to vote for the proposition, but the amount of money spent by the industry was. According to Tarrance, “Future campaigns should work to minimize this issue.”^[27] When respondents were asked to evaluate the industry campaign contributions, 52 percent disapproved and 27 percent approved, compared with 45 percent and 37 percent, respectively, during the Proposition 5 campaign in 1978. The campaign contribution issue was becoming a more salient one for voters. Second, the health effects of secondhand smoke were considered a serious threat. Again, comparing the two elections, the report found that in 1983 59 percent thought secondhand smoke was harmful, up from 49 percent in 1978. Third, the message that people should be allowed to work things out themselves did not get through to people as effectively as the government intervention issue did, and the “accommodation” message might have been a more powerful argument in converting votes.

Among specific voter subgroups, the gay vote was “disappointing.” In early polling gays were one group who appeared to be prepared to vote against the proposition, but in the end their voting pattern was virtually identical to those of other groups. This fact particularly pleased the Yes on P forces, for they perceived the tobacco industry concentrating on winning the gay vote.

In 1991, when the Tobacco Institute drafted a report titled “California: A Multifaceted Plan to Address the Negative Environment,”^[29] the passage of Proposition P was listed as the first “important event” among those that had raised the level of acceptability of smoking restrictions. Hanauer could agree with the industry on this point: “This was a landmark. I've always said that this was the whole key to the national nonsmokers' rights movement. If we had lost Prop P, it would have set us back ten years or more.”^[4] In 1989 the US Surgeon General's report Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking: Twenty-Five Years of Progress identified the San Francisco victory as a stimulus to further ordinance activity.^[30]