# 387 Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - STEM CELL LOSS: $450 Million Research Bill Denied in New Jersey
As you may know by now, the New Jersey Stem Cell Research Bond Act lost: 53% to 47%.
First, let no one trash-talk the campaign director. In an unequal battle, working very nearly without a budget, Russ Oster gave it everything he had. He is a good man, and I would be proud to work beside him again, any time.
But the Religious Right out-moneyed us, out GOTV’ed us, and definitely out-lied us.
We cannot stop their lies. They cannot ever beat us on the facts, so they are forced to make up stuff, and they do.
But the other two factors, the money and the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort—there we can and must do better.
In visible dollars, the opposition spent about a million on the campaign, about twice what we had—but that was only the tip of the iceberg.
The opposition ran their campaign quite literally inside the Catholic Church, as well as receiving support from other Religious Right groups and some anti-tax organizations.
The Catholic Church has been attacking embryonic stem cell research non-stop for the past six years…and that means in every church they own across the land.
They fought us with TV commercials, pulpit homilies, radio and print ads, glossy fliers and handouts, paid lobbyists and lawn signs.
We went unarmed against the largest single property owner in the world.
How can we do better?
Two things leap to mind.
First, it was a major mistake to try for the act in an election “off year”.
It would have been better to try for the act in a Presidential election year, when we know folks are going to the polls. Voter turnout would have been at least double and perhaps triple the miserable twenty-something (don’t know exactly yet) it was.
That would have allowed New Jersey to mount a two-year campaign: the first year for raising funds—an effort of this magnitude must have a serious budget.
Money is the second problem.
Consider: California’s great Prop 71 effort was backed by a budget of $30 million. Missouri’s epic battle to pass Amendment 2 was funded by a similar amount.
Where will this money come from?
I urge every stem cell activist to contact their friends in the biomedical industry.
Now we all know the good work in teaching groups like BIO is doing.
But as an industry, in my opinion, the biomedical industry has been short-sighted and stingy in the extreme. It is not good enough to occasionally say a few nice words about the industry which will revolutionize the world of medicine—it will require a financial commitment.
America needs to spend billions on research. That means the campaigns must be backed.
If government billions are wanted, industry millions must be raised—so get on the ball, big BIO! The opposition always says you guys are behind the regenerative medicine effort—maybe it is time they were right!
In Proposition 71, the decision was made not to seek or even accept money from biomedical groups.
In my opinion, that was a mistake.
California was able to win anyway, but we had Bob Klein on our side, giving up his savings, the profits his company had made for years. He gives way too much, and cannot give more.
But is regenerative medicine to become big as the Defense Department (and why not, when millions of our citizens are needlessly dying, in a losing war with chronic illness?) then we must think and act like the Defense industry does. Big Bucks, not pennies.
I can sum up what we need in two words.
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS.
Let every biotech company contribute to the campaigns advancing stem cell research.
To the best of my knowledge the entire donation of biotech dollars to the New Jersey effort was $10,000—that is pathetic. It should have been at least ten million—with half a billion in research money at stake.
We can and must do better.
Or we will have to get used to losing.
Don Reed
www.stemcellbattles.com
