Quiet Revolution — Colorado Style

Time (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

[Tim] Gill is a 53-year-old snowboarder, retired computer programmer and multimillionaire… he started the Gill Foundation, which has invested $110 million nationwide in gay causes over the past decade. The Gill Action Fund threw $15 million into a dozen states during the 2006 midterm elections, targeting 70 politicians regarded as unhelpful to gay causes: 50 went down. And the fund is helping transform the political face of Colorado.

Good for him. $15 million isn’t really a lot of money, but it seems to have had an enormous effect here (assuming the 70 targeted pols were incumbents… if not, then, not).

Impatient with the lack of gay rights progress this past decade, Gill is pushing hard to end injustice and inequality by the end of the next decade. And recognizing that most anti-gay initiatives are born at the state level, Gill has developed a national political strategy based on successes in Colorado. “They’ve taken an in-state model and applied it to the entire country,” says Denver political analyst Floyd Ciruli. “Gill [and his people are] incredibly strategic. They simply don’t waste money. They put their funding where they can take control of legislatures… They’re taking significant contributions and putting them brilliantly in legislative environments where a few seats changing will change the entire control of a state.”

This is not the usual route taken by single-issue groups. Most tend to seek publicity, to take a broader aim, and to promote their cause more than any particular candidate. This strategy intrigues me. Gill’s not particularly well-known, but he seems to have done more for gay rights than a host of very well-known activists who focus on the national picture. Quiet, precise targeting seems to have been more effective. Interesting.

Read the whole thing.

And read more, as balbulican points out in the comments, in The Atlantic.