When logic meets rhetoric
During the 2012 election season, Edward Schiappa closely watched the campaign in his longtime home of Minnesota, where voters were entertaining a measure called Amendment 1. A “yes” vote would have changed the state constitution to make marriage legal only between a man and a woman; a “no” vote would have been a move in favor of gay rights. “Going into the 2012 election, I was not at all optimistic about the results,” says Schiappa, then a professor of communications at the University of Minnesota, who favored a “no” vote. After all, the “yes” campaign led in many polls late into the summer. But the momentum then shifted: The “no” side starting gaining traction, and on Election Day, Minnesota voters voted “no” by a 51-47 margin. “I was watching the Minnesota campaign thinking, ‘They’re blowing it,’” Schiappa recalls of the amendment’s opponents. “But in fact they did exactly the right thing. They...