Frank Schubert the mastermind behind the false and misleading scaare ads and the campaign to pass Proposition 8 in California, Question 1 in Maine, and other anti-gay initiatives, is leaving his firm Schubert Flint Public Affairs behind to start a new one:
Schubert, a conservative Catholic, said he would build a new national consulting practice focused on social issues such as protecting life, strengthening families, preserving traditional marriage and protecting religious liberties, along with pursuing conservative public policies that promote prosperity and liberty.
In an email to "friends" accompanying a press release announcing his decision, Schubert touts his anti-gay triumphs:
Until 2008, my entire career in public affairs consulting was devoted to assisting the business community deal with challenges it was facing, including successfully managing dozens of ballot initiative campaigns in California and many other states. As you know, in 2008 I took on the Proposition 8 campaign to restore marriage in California as the union of one man and one woman. I did so as a lifelong Catholic because it reflects my own beliefs about the issue as well as those of my faith. I was honored to have won the Prop 8 campaign, despite conventional wisdom. My colleagues in the political consulting profession found it to be the best-managed initiative campaign in the nation that year. In 2009, I also won a marriage fight in Maine, and in 2010 I helped remove three Iowa Supreme Court judges from office after they imposed same-sex marriage in that state.
In the email, Schubert suggests Schubert Flint Public Affairs has been blacklisted because of its association with the anti-gay campaigns:
The marriage issue obviously is a highly-controversial one, with strong passions on both sides. My involvement in marriage and other conservative issues has never resulted in any problems for my clients, and no client has ever stepped away from the firm due to my work on those issues. However, being involved in those issues has resulted in a reluctance by some in the general business community to hire my firm for new work. Additionally, the media focus on my marriage work has overshadowed the work of others in the firm who are accomplishing a lot of great things for our clients.
It has become clear to me over the past year or so that if I wanted to be in a position to successfully compete for future work with the business community I would need to step away from working on social conservative issues, regardless of what my faith teaches me about those issues.
At the same time, there is a tremendous need for accomplished consultants to work on issues like marriage, life, religious liberty, and similar subjects – all issues that I care deeply about.
I have carefully and prayerfully considered the pros and cons of the conflicting paths, and I have decided to focus my work on the issues I care about. Accordingly, I will leave Schubert Flint and have opened a new firm focused on conservative issues – Mission: Public Affairs, LLC.
