Buckmire said the campaign should also have emphasized that, at its core, the proposition was about stripping a minority of a right that they had enjoyed. "The civil rights of people should not be put to a vote," he said. "Period. I would have thought that that message would have gotten through."
Shockley agreed. Civil rights, he said, has come to mean "one thing in the popular culture": the empowerment of black people.
But "what people don't realize is that King said over and over that the victories of civil rights were won for everyone," he added, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Political strategist Darry Sragow said that the success of Proposition 8 shows that several assumptions about California voters, particularly black voters, proved to be false -- namely, that "because you are for civil rights and equality, you are liberal on everything."
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cara.dimassa@latimes.com
jessica.garrison@latimes.com
Times reporter Dan Morain contributed to this story.
