This is fairly consistent with numbers that we've seen in the past, but PPP has just released their own data showing a majority favoring full marriage equality.
-The tide is turning in support of gay marriage in California. 51% of voters in the state now think it should be legal while 40% think it should remain illegal. It was just a little over 2 years ago that the state passed Proposition 8 but these numbers are reflective of a general liberalization in the views of Americans toward same sex marriage. (PPP)
The numbers get even better when you pull out senior citizens at 53-38. It is only a matter of time before we have full marriage equality in California and, eventually, the nation.
Oh, and they also tested a retrospective on the 2003 recall, and guess what, Californians wish they hadn't done that. By a 42-32 margin, voters would have refrained from recalling Davis. Too bad we can't take back the past seven years and the havoc the Governator wrought.
Oh, the heady days of 2003; there was a perfect storm brewing that Gray Davis could do nothing to stop. Darrell Issa was busy tossing around his car security cash around in order to be elected governor in the recall election. Of course, that never happened, as Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in to the race, and the rest is history. But what is the CW on that?
Well, if there is a source of Sacramento CW, certainly George Skelton is your man. And today, he declares that the recall was folly:
One thing should now be evident as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger packs up his office: It was a mistake to recall Gray Davis.
Davis didn't deserve it. He had just been reelected the year before. He would have been out of office in three years anyway.
Schwarzenegger wasn't an improvement except for, briefly, providing entertainment. He didn't make the state's money mess any better. In fact, it has gotten worse. (LA Times)
Of course, seeing where he is now in the polls, and the position the state is in right now, this takes no great source of conventional wisdom. During the last seven years, Arnold made some pretty important moves. But, ultimately, he was a failure because he didn't understand the system, and his only attempts to change it were at the margin where it is safe and cuddly.
He billed himself as a reformer, and the only reforms he could get through were do-nothing reforms like redistricting and Top 2. He billed himself as somebody who could sweep away the debt and deficit, but really, he was in no position to do either. And he never even seriously tried to work for real change on the budget system. He was content to further aggrandize the Big 5 system, making the system even more closed than it was in the past.
Gray Davis got rolled, but as we learned from Prop 8, the voters of this state can make mistakes. Some they learn quickly, and others it takes a few years. It seems with the Mistakinator, it took about 6 years.
I will be on KRXA 540 AM at 8 to discuss this and other topics in California politics
George Skelton runs hot and cold in terms of the usefulness of his observations, but today he starts to get closer to the truth by exposing Arnold Schwarzenegger's complete failure of leadership on the budget mess. As the state moves to the edge of total meltdown, it's becoming undeniable even to California's centrist Villagers that instead of being some post-partisan strong leader, Arnold is just a failure:
Californians haven't been prepared by their political leaders for the one-two punch. Sure, the public has a vague idea of what's coming, but too many people aren't certain it's necessary -- especially the tax hikes during a deep recession.
That's not just my view. It's also the observation of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's predecessor, the governor he ousted in the 2003 recall election: Gray Davis.
Gray Davis told me: "People are going to get hit with major tax increases and program reductions and no one is preparing them. Part of leadership is not just doing the job, but explaining to the public why a certain action needs to be taken. Why it needs to happen and how long it will remain.
"You have to bring people along with you. President Obama is a master of selling the public on why his programs make sense -- in contrast to the deafening silence coming out of Sacramento."
Of course, Davis isn't quite right here - there has been more than "deafening silence" coming out of Sacramento. Arnold and his Yacht Party allies have been pretty vocal about the crisis - they believe government is the problem, and have been telling the public that at almost every opportunity. "Economic stimulus" is defined by them not as job creation (which is how Obama, the Congress, and virtually every economist see it) but as rolling back environmental and labor regulations and gutting spending.
Arnold has been consistent in pushing an anti-government message, so is it any wonder that is what the likely outcome of all this will be? Democrats speak of the 2/3 rule, as do we on the blogs, but the media centrists like Skelton rarely see fit to mention it. The public then looks at Sacramento and says "you suck" without really understanding what the problem is - a Republican filibuster intended to cram Grover Norquist's agenda down our throats. Like Rush Limbaugh, these wingnuts weaned on talk radio want California to fail.
Arnold spent the first 5 years of his time as governor telling Californians they could have it all - a growing economy, the public services they want, and the low taxes they feel are a birthright. He sold that message so well that when he tries to turn around and say that tax hikes are necessary, nobody is listening to him.
This budget and economic crisis has many fathers, but none more prominent than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. When the state issues IOUs next week they will be his true legacy to California - a governor who failed so completely that the state had to print funny money to meet its obligations. The honorable thing to do would be to admit failure and resign. Unfortunately we're stuck with him for two more years.
It's very rare to hear the problems of the state's budget and cash crises discussed correctly, particularly in the wider media. The journalistic fetish of "balance" and making sure the only valid opinion is perfectly situated in the middle of any argument means that the go-to "experts" for the traditional media are always these Solomon-like High Broderists with advice like "the legislature should just get together for drinks more often." Thus the breadth of opinion on a show like Warren Olney's ranges from California Forward to a beat reporter. And the problems of the state are always ascribed to "the legislature." Not the fact that we have a majority vote for elections but a 2/3 vote for any tax and budget issue, making it literally impossible for the elected representatives of the state to do the job entrusted them by the voters. No, that would be too simple. It must have to do with Democrats and Republicans not drinking together enough.
Two more examples of this today. First, the California Alliance for Jobs, which actually helped lead the fight for Prop. 1A's high-speed rail bonds, has a couple radio spots out today with "funnyman" Will Durst blaming "the legislature" for stopping all those infrastructure projects and hurting the state. The MP3 is here. Amazingly, Durst spoke for 60 whole seconds and didn't make a Monica Lewinsky joke. But he also failed to make clear in any way that any particular political party is responsible for budget gridlock. Durst says that we need a responsible budget with cuts and revenues, without mentioning that the Democrats have PROPOSED AND PASSED that.
Then wet noodle Gray Davis offers his wisdom on the crisis:
"It's deja vu," Davis told a cluster of reporters after listening to Schwarzenegger's somber address. "California has experienced feast-or-famine budgeting as long as I can recall, and (it) will go on for all eternity until the people pass a genuine rainy day fund."
Yes, THAT'S the problem. Not having revenues too closely aligned to the boom-and-bust cycle. Not ratcheting down property taxes so corporations pay less for their space than an average suburban couple in Nebraska. Not Yacht Party obstructionism. It's all about that rainy day fund (which, by the way, was PASSED but which the Governor has continually raided).
The sad thing is that Davis knows he's lying, but he's either unable to or incapable of admitting it. And so the bipartisan fetishists say "can't we all get along" without recognizing that their rhetoric, which doesn't assign blame or give any citizen a roadmap to what the problem really is, sends the state careening into disaster. I have nothing but contempt for these people, even more than the Yacht Party in many ways, because they so blithely abuse their own power.
The intellectual inconsistencies are impossible to miss in this story on the Denham recall. It'd be a lot more effective to cry and whine about a power grab and unfair tactics, for example, if you DON'T tip off that you're planning on doing it yourself.
Jon Fleischman, vice chairman of the California Republican Party, said Perata was misusing the recall process, which is meant to boot people from office for serious misconduct. Fleischman and other activists in Orange County said that if the Denham recall succeeds, a similar campaign might be launched against Lou Correa, a Democratic state senator from Santa Ana.
Actually, the right answer is to reform the recall process, not to vow to "misuse" it again, if you want to remain on the intellectual and moral high ground.
But that's not surprising, of course, since the same people whining about the recall today are the ones who benefited from it in 2003.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported the budget Denham refused to vote for and even traveled at the time to Denham's district to pressure him, has disparaged the recall that's on the June 3 ballot.
"Obviously, it is political," Schwarzenegger said when asked about the effort at a recent Sacramento news conference, adding that the budget vote as "a reason for recall I think is ludicrous."
Riiiight, because Gray Davis wasn't recalled because of a budget deficit.
Like Fleischman, Denham says Perata was abusing the recall process, which is meant to remove from office people who act illegally. But backers of the recall effort note that Denham contributed $17,000 in 2003 to the Republican-led effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis, who was under criticism for the budget mess but had not been accused of criminal conduct.
It's just so hard to keep things straight, and figure out which are the RIGHT recalls and which are the WRONG ones. So good that we have honest brokers like Jon Fleischman and Jeff Denham to set us straight.
It's also a bad thing, we're told, that people in Sacramento and abroad are telling the good people of the 12th District what to do. Good thing there's none of that happening among Denham supporters:
Denham has raised $1.1 million to fight the recall. Major contributions include $50,000 from the Los Angeles Casinos Political Action Committee and $25,000 from the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians, which has a casino in Temecula.
Most of the members of the Los Angeles Casinos PAC, we all know, live in Stanislaus County.
The Governor has continued to assert, and the people largely believe him, that he is somehow removed from the financial troubles that face the state. And he got an assist from an unlikely source today - former Governor Gray Davis.
So why is California suddenly faced with a $14-billion budget shortfall? Is it because the governor (or the Legislature) did something terribly wrong?
No, the governor of a nation-size state like California can affect the economy, but only on its margins. The reason this deficit is looming is because no one can repeal the business cycle. Just as night follows day, expansionary times will be followed by recessionary times. And yet the overwhelming impulse in Sacramento is to spend every dollar on the table. If a booming economy has the state coffers flush, Democrats say: "There will never be a better time to expand programs than right now." Republicans counter: "We have too much money. Let's reduce taxes." [...]
Believe me, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't want to close 48 parks, reduce education funding or release prisoners. Like all governors, however, he is required to bring expenditures in line with revenues. I don't agree with all of his suggested cuts, nor do I endorse all of the critical responses from the Legislature.
There is a significant reform suggested by the governor, however, that I fully endorse. It is a constitutional amendment that would require putting aside a portion of surging revenues in good times as a buffer against painful cuts in bad times. I called for such a "rainy day" fund while in office -- and recently former Gov. Pete Wilson also spoke in favor of this idea.
Gray Davis is showing the political acumen that made him the most reviled governor in recent California history. He's also being massively dishonest. Schwarzenegger repealing the Vehicle License Fee's return to 1998 levels had an undeniable impact. Furthermore, so did his borrowing through bonds, which costs the state billions of dollars per year.
Are Arnold and the California GOP to blame for this? Who else? Nobody put a gun to their heads and forced them to respond to our last crisis with nothing but a toxic combination of demagoguery and tax-cut jihadism. They did it all on their own. I understand the desire to roll up our sleeves and stop sniping about the past, but let's not actively rewrite history to pretend that our latest crisis "just happened." It didn't. Arnold and his party, despite plenty of warnings from nonpartisan budget analysts about what they were doing, deliberately bequeathed it to us.
And, contrary to Schwarzenegger's belief, he has a great deal of control over state spending, including a line-item veto. Trying to fault the legislature for "runaway spending" when he has to sign the document is just completely absurd. The legislature didn't go on a "spending spree" on its own, nor did they use revenue only for the purpose of spending; there were billions in tax cuts thrown in as well.
The Governor, and his predecessor, are writing a history of government in California that doesn't have an executive branch. This is a falsehood that can only be met with laughter.
The similarities between the 2003 recall and the current electoral vote swindle are quite stark (and not only because it is the same people using the same language about a right-wing power grab in an election where nobody knows the turnout). So let's compare the benchmark testing by Field Poll in each race, among all registered voters.
Democratic strategist Garry South, who advised Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman during his bid for the party's 2004 nomination, said "there's always a danger when you're running for public office that a pattern of behavior starts to emerge. And it might be utterly unfair to draw conclusions when things add up to a pattern -- but that's what people do, and that's what the media does.''
If you want a pattern, let's talk about Garry South destroying the (all once-bright) futures of Gray Davis, Joe Lieberman, and Steve Westly. It is literally like he won't hire a client without potential to be on the top 10 list of the biggest losers in the Democratic Party this millennium. There are plenty of reasons for the Open Letter to Garry South.
And can we finally retire the term of him as a "Democratic strategist" after all the evidence the Democratic Party rejects him everywhere he goes? He's a "Connecticut for Lieberman" strategist and has the record to prove it.
Well, hump day for the week and month I suppose. Teasers: Elections are just one more bizarre process in OC governance, we got no money, we got no voters, and we got no media. Well, that's a bummer.
Garry South has appeared to be very bitter since his DLC candidate failed to buy the gubernatorial primary. In one of his recent whines, the first comment is from the Flash Report's Jon Fleischman:
Now, Garry, I think it might be more effective if you had told Phil NOT to do these things. Now in this morning's staff meeting, when the staff members (who all will have read your illuminating column) suggest your strategy, Phil will throw a temper-tantrum, and declare, "South doesn't run THIS campaign."
Setting aside the obvious -- that a Republican gave tips to try and get Democrats to listen to South -- I think this is the exact appropriate response. Garry South's DLC triangulation approach has looked badly out of place for years. Democrats have long since tired of Garry South's campaigns and the only recent candidates who hired him seemed to be planing on winning in-spite of a lack of Democratic support.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has promoted his record of bringing enrollment in Healthy Families to record levels. And when running for governor in the recall election, Schwarzenegger promised to provide health coverage for every child. This much is true, more than 90% of California children now have some form of health coverage. Now, his claims of credit are a bit more misguided:
But state data compiled by the California HealthCare Foundation show programs that cover children grew much faster under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis than under Schwarzenegger. Davis was recalled, in part, because the state ran up a record budget deficit under his watch. A lot of that money went to expand the same health care programs that Schwarzenegger is now touting.
The governor's own efforts, meanwhile, have been slowed by factors ranging from the deficit he inherited -- in his first budget Schwarzenegger tried unsuccessfully to cap enrollment in Healthy Families -- to resistance from his fellow Republicans in the Legislature. With their votes needed to pass a state budget, Republicans succeeded last week in forcing Schwarzenegger and Democrats to drop proposals to extend health insurance programs to all children, including illegal immigrants. The governor had earmarked $23 million to provide coverage for children in 18 counties who do not qualify for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families because their families are not poor enough or are illegal immigrants. (SacBee 7/3/06)
The governor has used the Davis boom-time legacy of spending on child health insurance to build his own record. He has done little to actually accomplish anything that brings up the rate of enrollment, as the slowing enrollment has shown.
So, health care supporters are forced to turn to the initiative process to get something done. The tobacco tax, Prop 86, that will appear on the November ballot will provide funds for coverage of all California children. Now, I have some remaining questions about Prop 86, but the fact that we can't get universal child healthcare done is a sad statement. The GOP has chosen to make children thier pawn in this immigration game that they are playing. It's not right, and it's not fair to the children of California. All of our children deserve quality health care.
Vince Duffy, a former Gray Davis speechwriter, has a few thoughts on how to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger.
California Democrats should tie all of these Republican rascals, including the president himself, around Arnold's neck, from the primary through Election Day.
Pundits who say Democrats need a positive message miss the point. The message is that Democrats are not George W. Bush Republicans and Arnold is.
This year, that's more than enough.
It was, after all, Schwarzenegger who basked in the Bush glory at the Republican convention in 2004. To a nationwide audience, Schwarzenegger called Democrats liars and boasted that only Republicans can be tough on terrorists.
Even worse, it was Schwarzenegger who campaigned for President Bush in arguably the most important battleground state, Ohio, just days before Election Day in 2004 in front of 20,000 people.
That day, the governor said: "I'm here to pump you up to re-elect George W. Bush," and it was a success. Ohio went for Bush by a tiny margin. America re-elected the president and the Republican Congress.
Our task is to never let anyone forget that Schwarzenegger is responsible.(CapWeekly 5/25/06)
It's all stuff that's been said before, and I don't know if it's really enough. Yes, Arnold is a bad governor. Yes, he has ties with Bush (ie Dowd and Smith, former BushCo employees, now running his campaign), but it's not totally clear that it's enough against him. Unfortunately there's still going to be a group of people that will vote for Ahnold just because he's a movie star. Look, I was at the Capitol last week, and there were people queueing up to see him walk into the capitol. You think people were doing that for Davis? I think not.
I think tying Schwarzenegger to Bush will help. But only to a certain extent. The Dem nominee should also present the state with concrete ways that he is different than Arnold. There are plenty of ways to show that Arnold is not a moderate (such as that early veto announcment last week). We just need to make sure we can show that he is no moderate.
