A self-identified gay republican activist warns in the Portland Press Herald that gay marriage will go down again if it is put to the people of Maine in 2012 (he would prefer that government "get out of the marriage business altogether"):

If they follow through on their plan to put same-sex marriage on the November 2012 ballot, EqualityMaine and their left-wing followers will be ensuring that Maine will be a red state in the 2012 election cycle.

I say this because by putting this lightning-rod issue on the ballot, they will be bringing all of the socially conservative voters out of the woodwork to vote against it.

... the liberal progressive establishment is showing how clueless they are about the Maine electorate with this move [to put marriage on the ballot].

They think that putting this on the ballot in a high-turnout year is the tonic to cure the ill of getting around the groundswell these ballot questions generate. The problem is that they are going to hit their target yet again, yet miss the goal. In 2009, they planned for a victory with 265,000 votes. They got 267,000 votes. Their problem was that the opposition got 300,000 votes.