EDGE San Francisco

California may turn out to be the forgotten state in this year’s presidential campaign.

A combination of factors points to the likelihood that the Golden State will largely be ignored other than as a source of campaign cash and volunteers who can travel to other parts of the country to campaign for their preferred candidate.

For one thing, California is decidedly a blue state, and thus, sees more attention when there is a Democratic primary battle. At this point in the presidential election cycle four years ago, the Bay Area had been ground zero for nearly a year as Democratic candidates courted the region looking for both monetary contributions and support among voters.

In 2008, looking to play a larger role in determining both parties’ candidate, California scheduled its primary for February 5 along with 21 other states. This time around state leaders pushed back the presidential primary to June in order to save money.

The decision means that by the time the state’s GOP voters weigh in on whom their party’s challenger to President Barack Obama will be, the Republican race will likely have already been settled. Most analysts expect that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will have secured his party’s nomination long before June.

The dearth of attention is already being felt by Bay Area LGBTs. Despite the fact the general election is now 10 months away, there has been little outreach to gay voters by either of the major candidates.

"I have no idea what they have done in outreach to LGBTs in general," said Bentrish Satarzadeh, the immediate past female co-chair of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club in San Francisco. "I hate to say it, but they are taking the gay vote for granted."

But Satarzadeh, who helped raise money for Obama back in 2008, said that is to be expected in a liberal area like the Bay Area.

"They have bigger fish to fry in the Midwest. California’s vote is usually taken for granted in the presidential race," she said.

Rebecca Prozan, who was Alice’s female co-chair during the last presidential campaign, also served as co-chair of Obama’s Northern California LGBT outreach, which was up and running by 2007. This time around she has yet to be contacted by Obama’s re-election campaign, though Prozan added that doesn’t surprise her.

"I’ve not yet been asked but would love to do it," she said. "I think it is different when running for re-election than the first time out. I think they will be ready to rock and roll when the time is right."

Even on the GOP side, where throughout 2011 Republicans were slow to coalesce around one candidate, few of the campaigns courted the Bay Area, said Dan Brown, president of the Log Cabin Republicans’ San Francisco chapter. The two that did, who happened to have the more pro-gay stances, are no longer in the primary race.

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who had served as Obama’s ambassador to China, dropped out this week. And former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is now running as a Libertarian. The other Republican contenders have paid little attention to California, said Brown.

"They are too focused on the earlier primary states," said Brown, adding that California’s later primary date is "good from a financial perspective but we are not going to have a lot of influence on who the candidate will be. If it is close by the time June comes around, California will be really important."

While there may be little public presence so far, the Bay Area isn’t being completely ignored. In recent weeks Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee, has reached out to Obama supporters in the area. The group held a phone bank in San Francisco Sunday, January 8 where volunteers called Democratic voters in Nevada to urge them to participate in their state’s caucuses this month.

The official Obama re-election campaign is also working on an LGBT voter outreach plan it intends to unveil this spring, said Clo Ewing, the Obama For America spokeswoman assigned to handle LGBT media.

"Across the board, really, we are very much in the building and organizational phase right now," Ewing, a former producer of the Oprah show who said she is a straight ally of the LGBT community, told the Bay Area Reporter . "What is happening now is a lot of planning."

Ewing said the campaign, which is headquartered in Chicago, has hired two staff members to develop an LGBT outreach plan. It will be rolled out within a couple months, she said.

The campaign may not be on the ground in California just yet, said Ewing, but "that doesn’t mean it is not going to happen."

One person who will be helping with the local effort to reach LGBT voters is Los Altos resident Kathy Levinson, who is on Obama’s LGBT National Finance Committee. Levinson told the B.A.R. she has been assisting with outreach efforts throughout Northern California in order to raise money from LGBT donors.

"I am committed to seeing President Obama re-elected because of what he has done on behalf of the LGBT community thus far and because I believe that under a second Obama term, we will continue to move forward," wrote Levinson in an email, adding that she didn’t have any information about LGBT specific fundraising events at this time.

The slow pace of the national campaign to reach LGBT voters doesn’t faze Martha Knutzen, the Alice Club’s new female co-chair.

"We don’t have to wait for them. It is almost as though they know that," she said. "We will be starting our operation on our own."