It turns out Phil Angelides is running a funny campaign. Now, not that bad kind of funny, I mean actually funny. His campaign put out a cartoon mocking the Governator called Arnold's Neighborhood, playing off Sesame Street.
And speaking of Funny, the Governor himself is quite the jokester! At the beginning of yesterday's town hall meeting, The Governator's sound was having some issues. Perhaps, but it also could have been some planned joke, that we'll never know. Anyway, Ahnold joked that "it must be Perata somewhere in the back messing with my sound." Yet another helpful comment from the man who was going to work with both parties.
And on to the meeting itself. I recorded it and was going to stream some clips, but FOX 2 took care of that for me. They've provided a page with links to several clips. Hopefully it will be up until the election is over. A classic line from Ahnold: "I'm not smart enough to understand all of this and the history of all this." in reference to Prop. 74's requirement for 5 year teacher tenure.
In my estimation, Perata won this debate. However, Ahnold's star power still has some strange hold over Repuplicans that I can't really understand. Polls are all over the place, so who knows how the Propositions are doing. It was nice, though, to have an informed discussion about the special election. It would have been better to have both Perata and Ahnold on stage at the same time, but I'm guessing Ahnold's handlers wouldn't have any of that.
(As I said, all 77, all the time - promoted by SFBrianCL)
Not that it should really affect the outcome either way, but there was an article in the LA Times about the actual nuts and bolts of getting the state ready for Prop 77. However, I think the more important part comes later (see the bold)
It's hellacious for us," said Stephen L. Weir, Contra Costa County registrar. "The rules under which we'd have to operate are pretty much impossible."
Proposition 77 would require three retired judges to redraw California's political districts "for use at the next statewide primary and general elections," presumably June and November 2006.
The drawing of new districts wouldn't take long. Some experts say it could be done in a few days with computer mapping software.
But for the people who oversee county elections, getting new boundaries for 120 Senate and Assembly seats, 53 congressional seats and four Board of Equalization districts would merely be a first step. They would have to redraw 25,000 precincts to fit the new districts, reassign polling places and tell voters how to find them.
All of that would have to be done by March so sample ballots could be prepared and mailed before the June election. Officials probably wouldn't get new maps until late December.
Political districts are usually redrawn by the Legislature once every decade, based on new census data, and then county officials have months to update their systems to match the maps. Opponents of Proposition 77 say that pattern should continue, because an estimated 3 million residents are new to California since lines were last drawn in 2001.
As I've said before, I support the concept of reform of the redistricting process (i.e. Reform Ohio Now), but how this is accomplished through Prop 77 is wrong. However we do draw the map, whether it is through the new retired judge panel or whatever, it should be done after 2010.
(Wanted to bump this back up, as there's some good conversation in the comments. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
When was it decided not to dredge up from the past into our conscious awareness the legacy and consequences of Prop. 13? I'm not sure who can be blamed for this, whether it be the media or ourselves, but I regret we collectively are clueless about the legacy of Prop. 13.
Prop. 13 laid the groundwork for this special election in California on November 8th. Passed in 1978, Prop. 13 was something most people in CA knows simply as the one which froze property taxes.
Another thing it did, something we should have seared into our brains, is this: because of Prop. 13 (and resulting developments), we lost local control over our property tax money. And this loss of control has had huge political implications.
UPDATE: Check out the PPIC's more recent (and more realistic) poll. Much better sounding for us...
A real mixed bag. Note that the Hoover Institution is a conservative think tank on the campus of Stanford. Also Note: Knowledge Networks conducts their polling online but recruits their survey respondents using the phone. Here's a Press Release and here's a PDF of the results.
A Stanford Uni./Hoover Institution poll; conducted
10/7-12 online by Knowledge Networks; surveyed 1,006 CA adults; margin of error +/- 3% (Business Wire, 10/18. Subsample: 459 likely voters; margin of error +/- 4.4%.
Schwarzenegger As Gov.? LVs All
Approve 37% 31%
Disapprove 51 59
That's real standard Ahnold approval now.
As for the props:
PROPOSITION 73 -- Parental Notification All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 54% 76% 39% 41%
No 46 24 61 59
PROPOSITION 74 -- Teachers' Tenure All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 49% 78% 26% 43%
No 51 22 74 57
PROPOSITION 75 -- Political Contributions All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 70% 86% 59% 63%
No 30 14 41 37
PROPOSITION 76 -- Limit State Spending All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 30% 49% 16% 23%
No 70 51 84 77
PROPOSITION 77 -- Redistricting All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 50% 70% 30% 55%
No 50 30 70 45
PROPOSITION 78 -- Prescription Drugs All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 59% 57% 59% 64%
No 41 43 41 36
PROPOSITION 80 -- Electric Service All GOP Dem Ind
Yes 37% 42% 31% 41%
No 63 58 69 59
It's looking good on 76, but rather shaky on several others, especially 75. We really need to focus on giving 75 a chance. Now, the polling numbers from all the different polling companies are wildly different, but the fact remains that there is a lot of work yet to be done.
(The most dangerous part of Prop. 73? The definition of a fetus as an unborn child. Framing is key here. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
The OC register is running an article about whether Prop. 73 will alter the regulation of in-vitro fertilization:
Putting that language into the state Constitution could lay legal grounds for those wishing to ban stem-cell research and in-vitro fertilization, said Margaret Crosby, an attorney who helped get the state's previous parental notification law thrown out. Because embryonic stem-cell research and in-vitro fertilization involve unused embryos, the practices could be vulnerable to the legal challenge that they are terminating human life, she said.
the use of any means to terminate the pregnancy of an unemancipated minor female known to be pregnant with knowledge that the termination with those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born. For purposes of this section, "abortion" shall not include the use of any contraceptive drug or device.
Anybody want to comment on whether this is a real risk, or some sort of straw man argument created by the OC register so that they don't need to discuss issues about how much access to the courts minors who fear abuse at the hands of their parents really have?
(Lies are part of the game I suppose, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't point them out. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
Here is your chance to stop Schwarzenegger and his true lies. Earlier today, the Governor's campaign team began airing a new 15-second advertisement that says Prop 76 "will increase funding available to school districts."
That claim is bogus: according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analysts Office, Prop 76 will slash education funding by $4 billion - and gives the Governor even more power to starve our schools of funding during a "budget emergency." The California Budget Project came to the same conclusion yesterday.
First of all I want to say that this is a great place to catch up on California Politics, bravo for starting this blog!
I have lived in California all of my life, first in San Francisco, then a few years in Monterey, and for the last 21 years San Jose has been my home. During my 46 years in California there have been changes politically, swings to the right, swings to the left and some moderation popping up here and there. Right now we are seeing an attempt by the GOP to swing our state to the right, and we have a Governor that is without a doubt unqualified to lead this state.
In a diary yesterday, a poll by SUSA concerning Arnold's Props came to our attention. (Thanks Alliance!) But now there appears to be a little controversy regarding that poll. From today's Mattier and Ross:
-- And on Proposition 76, Survey USA found 59 percent going for the measure to allow the governor to cut spending if the state doesn't have enough money to cover the tab.
Just last month, the Public Policy Institute poll found that only 26 percent of voters surveyed approved of the idea and 63 percent opposed it.
Why the difference?
Maybe it's that the Survey USA question didn't mention that school funding could be affected by the measure, "and that's right in the ballot title,'' said Field pollster Mark DiCamillo.
"We ask our question in 35 words. They ask their questions in 105 words,'' responded Survey USA's Jay Leve, adding that sometimes the actual ballot language is deliberately misleading.
It won't come as a shock that Todd Harris from the governor's team agreed with Survey USA's take.
"People won't be using the ballot language to make their decision," Harris said. "They'll be using what they hear in the television advertising."
By the way, KPIX news bosses haven't aired the poll just yet -- they want to take a closer look at the data.
The numbers were suspiciously different from PPIC's poll, and I guess we know why now. No word as to why Prop77 was so different as well. I'll be eagerly waiting more polling data on the Props.
It looks like we're going to have a general election in December. Its an interesting match-up:
Campbell (R)
Gilchrist (AI)
Young (D)
Tiritilli (G)
Cohen (L)
The real question is whether Gilchrist (the founder of the Minuteman vigilante project) siphons enough votes away from Campbell to enable Young to win in the general election. I've got a nasty suspicion that the Republicans might do something like fund Tiritilli to try and offset Gilchrist's capture of the far right.
Now, I think there are several different questions here.
1) Where did Brewer's support come from?
Was it,as we discussed earlier, Dems crossing over to vote for her? Many of these voters would probably support Young over Campbell. And even if they aren't Dems, are they sufficiently turned off by Campbell to vote for Young?
2) What will become of the rest of the GOP horde?
There were a lot of GOP candidates, and a lot of voters for said candidates. Campbell himself had 46%. That's a lot. He essentially needs to pick up only 4%. Economics would have you believe that there is no way that Campbell will lose a significant portion of that 46% due to your old preference ordering theory. In other words, why would people abandon Campbell when they have fewer choices? So, barring meltdown, he will probably take that 46%. This puts Young in a difficult position. It will be hard to get to 46%.
3) What's the deal with Gilchrist?
Who the hell knows? But the question remains as whether he can break into any of Campbell's support. The great hope for Young has to be that Gilchrist will come on strong in the coming few months. He should be an attractive candidate for conservatives with his anti-immigration message. Ultimately, he may force Campbell to move to far to the right for some voters on this issue.
I'll close with the quote from the propagandizing rag OC Register:
Young, who is making his first foray into elective politics, beat out three other Democrats, including UCI business professor John Graham. Graham had tried three successive times to oust Cox, now chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But Young got the Democratic Party endorsement after convincing party leaders that he would run an aggressive campaign and was willing to invest substantial personal resources in the effort.
“It’s good news, but it could be better,” Young said. “We need to mobilize the Democratic base and get the donors from that base to pony up the money. That’s where the power is in politics.”
Wylie Aitken, head of the Orange County Democratic Foundation and an engineer of Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s 1996 victory over former Rep. Bob Dornan, reluctantly says he doesn’t believe a Democrat has a chance in the 48th.
“I think Young is an outstanding candidate, more in line with the viewpoints of people living in that community,” said Aitken. “But I don’t think he has any chance. What does that tell you about people who have decided to vote along party lines without any regard of what happens to their neighbors and the rest of the country?”
Indeed what does that say? Well, Steve Young, in my opinion, gives us the best opportunity to pull off the miracle that it would take to pick up CA-48. Sure would be great to prove them wrong, wouldn't it?
Hey...all you OC progressives. I know you're out there. Today is the primary for CA-48. There has been some lively discussion on the merits of voting for the candidates. But whatever you do, make sure you go out and vote.
Want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger and his corporate cronies flip-flop faster than John Kerry at a gay marriage rally? Want to know what is REALLY behind Prop. 75?
What is good for the goose is good for the gander, right? If the Governator thinks Prop. 75 is such a good idea for unions, ask him whether he supports applying the same principle to corporations too. Proposition 75, at its core is designed to hurt the clout of the unions and strengthen the corporate hand, so Arnold and his supporters are hypocrites who will not back this proposal, even though it is the fair thing to do.
Prop. 75 wants to impose internal requirements on the unions to take majority votes of their members before they take political action. Contentious matters internal to the union will become expensive, time consuming, and wasteful. The unions will be hamstrung, frozen in place, and unable to act --when that is precisely what they need to do in certain scenarios.
Democrat and UCI political scientist Mark Petracca argues that in the upcoming primary election to replace Chris Cox in CA-48, Democrats would be crazy to do anything but vote for Marilyn Brewer - a Republican.
As Petracca puts it in this week's OC Weekly:
If Democrats vote impulsively for a Democrat to fill that seat — and there are good ones — they’ll find themselves Oct. 5 with their thumbs in their bottoms and a hardcore conservative in the U.S. Congress.
It’s all about mathematics. Under no reasonable circumstances can a Democrat win this district, which includes the Republican strongholds of Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, El Toro, Tustin, Newport Beach and Irvine. In the 48th, Republicans outnumber Democrats by about two to one; the district has more registered Republicans than any other California congressional district and the lowest percentage of registered Democrats in any state congressional district.
Gentlemen start your engines! Unions are gearing up to face the Republican-leaning Prop. 75. Prop 75 requires public employee unions to obtain annual, written consent before using money for politics. There are already labor laws which allow union members to opt-out of the political spending of their unions. Republicans, however, want to increase the burden on unions. Anything to stop a progressive message from getting out. However, the unions are not taking this lying down. They are preparing for an all-out war (SacBee):
In their counterattack against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leading up to the Nov. 8 special election, the unions that represent 1.3 million public employees in California are muscling up as never before.
According to the secretary of state's office, public employee unions this year have created more than 180 political fundraising committees that are raising and spending money by the tens of millions to defeat four ballot initiatives supported by Schwarzenegger.
And Labor's efforts have been working:
Now, the unions are trying to make him pay, with the TV and radio ads and 1960s-style protests at Schwarzenegger's fundraisers where they scream in the faces of his contributors, "Shame on you."
Since September 2004, Schwarzenegger's approval ratings have fallen from 65 percent to 36 percent among registered voters, according to the independent Field Poll.
Even some supporters of the governor's agenda think the union attacks on Schwarzenegger are now taking their toll on his initiatives.
"If you taint the messenger, you corrupt the message," said longtime conservative activist and Proposition 75 author Lew Uhler. "And to the extent that Schwarzenegger has been tainted, then the impact of his message has been reduced."
At this point, Arnold is an easy target, and he's dragging the CalGOP down with him. They tied their fortunes to this aging movie star, all we have to do is let him take them down. Thanks Arnold!
On August 24, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about being forced into “begging” for money.
“Let me tell you, this is very hard for me to do,” he told the San Jose Mercury News. “I have never, ever asked anyone for money, not ever in my life. Now I have to go out there . . . and beg people for money, and it's tough to do,'' he told them. “But I have to because it's the only way we get the message on television and communicate with the people.''
But to critics, it sounds just like the old bully’s line: It all started when he hit me back.
The newest Field Poll is out, and the news for Arnold is not very good. From the SF Chronicle:
The governor's budget measure, Proposition 76, is opposed by 65 percent of voters, including pluralities or majorities of every voter subgroup measured in the poll. Only 19 percent of likely voters said they are inclined to support the measure.
"I've never seen a proposition start out this far behind and pass," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "It's monumental the amount of work (the governor) needs to do on this one."
I wrote my own redistricting software. With all of the nonsense going on with the Republican power grab in Texas and the unpredictable unaccountable prospects of Prop 77 in California, it's time to do something. And what better to do than demonstrate that there is a better way?
I think I have a good first solution. Here's the Los Angeles-San Diego area of California, as currently districted and after redistricting by my program.
