California voters are against cuts, mixed on taxes.
by Brian Leubitz
When the Republican realized that they could make some electoral gains from becoming the "Second Santa"with their tax cuts, they knew they were on to something. They didn't have to be the bad guys promoting spending cuts, and their tax cuts would somehow net just as much revenue because the magic "Laffer curve" would make everything better. And if it didn't work, well, the Democrats would have to cut spending and do the dirty work.
And, unsurprisingly, it worked. It has clearly worked in California, where Prop 13 and its anti-tax brethren have wreaked havoc on the state. For a few decades we were able to hide much of this through some huge bubbles and creative accounting, but that is a thing of the past. And so we have a huge deficit, a dysfunctional tax system, and a government that only allows cuts. What's a Republican to do to keep up his role as a second santa?
Well, blame it all on "waste, fraud, and abuse." It's a simple lie that, when repeated enough, becomes mantra to the media and, eventually, the general public. Take the latest PPIC poll and the latest finding:
Most Californians (59% adults, 55% likely voters) believe state government could cut spending and still provide the same level of services.
"There remains a strong belief that the state government could spend less and provide the same services even as Californians notice local service reductions from state spending cuts and show early support for a tax increase," says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO. (PPIC)
When the budget first got bad a few years back, perhaps there was a bit of fat to trim around the budget. Some unnecessary expenditures here and an unsuccessful program there. Not enough to fix the budget, but a few billion could be saved without fundamentally changing the role of government.
Those days are gone. Cuts to government expenditures mean direct cuts to services. There is simply no way to provide the same level of services for an ever decreasing amount of money. Go take a look at your local government offices and then compare it to the offices of your local bank corporate office. There are no fancy waterfalls and lavish breakrooms offering wide selections of Odwalla and Rice Krispies, there are just a dwindling level of state employees working ever harder to keep up. Teachers are spending large chunks of their paychecks to provide supplies for their classrooms and their students. Cuts to CalFire put firefighters in very real danger and mean more damage to California homes.
And yet, a strong majority of Californians are living in a world where we can somehow make painless cuts? Do they know of any of these painless cuts? Do the Republicans? Have they ever presented any of these so-called painless cuts?
But while 40 percent of adults and likely voters prefer closing the state's budget gap with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases-the approach Brown has proposed-similar proportions (35% adults, 41% likely voters) prefer closing it mainly through spending cuts. That being said, when read a summary, 72 percent of adults and 68 percent of likely voters favor Brown's initiative proposal.
Interestingly, the PPIC data also shows much stronger support for raising the highest income tax bracket(74% adults, 68% likely voters) than the sales tax. The sales tax is opposed by 69% of adults, 64% of likely voters. That particular question raises the specter of competing tax measures, the "Kardashian" tax and Brown's own measure. There is still a lot of time before signatures are due, and Brown has been working to shut down any other revenue measure. Whether he is successful or not will still take a while to know, but may end up dramatically changing the odds of his own measure.
While there have been efforts at public education on the budget by state politicians, it is a monstrous task, especially when there are players on the other side actively promoting misinformation. But, at every opportunity, progressives must be sure to emphasize the point that waste, fraud, and abuse is not an answer to all of our budget woes and to explain the real budget situation.
In polling, the answer you get depends heavily on the question. Obvious enough, right?
Few should understand this point better than the prestigious, independent Field Institute, whose polls on California issues often contribute to the public debate.
So why is Field polluting the discussion around revenues in California with bad questions and bad data?
Yesterday’s Democratic Senate caucus meeting – combined with Majority Leader Reid’s push on this issue, combined with President Obama’s leadership, combined with a clear demand by the public for action – has given comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation a major boost as we head towards the 4th of July recess. Clearly, at this point, there’s a better path to 60 votes in the U.S. Senate for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation than ever before. We are that close to making history, let’s make sure we seize this moment!
With all that in mind, a recent national survey by Al Quinlan of Greenburg Quinlan Rosner Research has potentially powerful implications for the 2010 elections, providing yet more evidence that climate legislation – despite a fallacious "mainstream media" narrative arguing otherwise – is actually good politics. The key findings are threefold (note: the document talks about strategy for the Democratic Party, but could apply to Republicans as well):
Small businesses “are among America’s most popular entities,” with an eye-popping 44:1 favorable to unfavorable ratio (“the highest we have ever seen in our polling on any topic”)
Generating support from small business owners, for either political party, is a key to success in the upcoming mid-term elections.
Small business owners strongly agree “that a move to clean energy will help restart the economy and lead to job creation by small businesses.” In fact, according to Greenburg Quinlan, “One of the most surprising findings of the survey is that despite the fact that nearly two thirds of business owners believe it would increase costs for their businesses, a majority still want to move forward on clean energy and climate policy.”
As if that’s not evidence enough that there’s broad support out there for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation, how about this Benenson Survey Group survey, conducted in late May/early June 2010? The key findings of this poll are:
65% of “likely 2010 voters” believe that “the federal government should invest much more than it currently invests [or] somewhat more than it currently invests .”
63% of “likely 2010 voters” support an energy bill that would “limit pollution, invest in domestic energy sources and encourage companies to use and develop clean energy…in part by charging energy companies for carbon pollution in electricity or fuels like gas.”
Among “undecided voters,” “62% support the bill and just 21% oppose.”
There is also strong evidence from this polling that voters – including independent voters by a 2.5:1 margin – are strongly inclined, by around a 2:1 margin, to be “more likely to re-elect” their Senator if he or she voted for a strong, comprehensive, clean energy and climate bill.
In sum, solid majorities of small businesspeople and the public at large both support comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. Which is why, once again – as we pointed out yesterday – the “mainstream media” narrative, that voting for limits on carbon pollution is bad politics, is just dead wrong. To the contrary, victory this November could go to the candidates – and the party – that seizes this issue and makes it their own. Ideally, it would be great to see both Republicans and Democrats fighting to be the “greenest” candidate, and not just in terms of how much money they raise.
UPDATE: Add another poll to the list, this one by WSJ-NBC indicating that “Respondents favored comprehensive energy and carbon pollution reduction legislation by 63 percent to 31 percent – a two to one margin.”
As John Garamendi touts in a diary here, the most recent SurveyUSA poll shows the Lt. Governor with a comfortable lead in the CA-10 primary set for Tuesday. I am surprised that another candidate hasn't talked it up as well, however, because the only candidate showing movement from the previous SurveyUSA poll is Anthony Woods.
In fact, this new poll, from 8/26-8/27, has Garamendi at 25%, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier at 16%, Asm. Joan Buchanan at 12% and Anthony Woods at 9%, with 5% undecided. The last poll, from 8/10-8/11 was Garamendi 26%, DeSaulnier 15%, Buchanan 12% and Woods 5%. I don't think there are enough undecided voters to push Woods much further, but he's running the only race drawing undecided voters, if the polls can be believed.
Among those who have already voted, the numbers are similar: Garamendi 27%, DeSaulnier 18%, Buchanan 13% and Woods 10%.
Certainly, Garamendi looks very strong for victory, and there aren't likely to be enough voters Tuesday to favor a late riser, but Anthony Woods is running the only race moving from no built-in support to a credible challenge. As for the relative flatness of the two state legislators, I'd say the choice by Sen. DeSaulnier to decide on a monomaniac focus on Garamendi's residency issue, which simply has not moved voters in numerous other instances, instead of giving voters a reason to support him, would offer some answer. Buchanan has run a self-funded campaign focused mainly on finding female support, but not necessarily a larger message. In an environment with three safe or fairly lackluster campaigns, the expected form is holding. Only Woods appears to be taking in new support, but his uphill battle was perhaps too high to climb.
Dan Walters is touting a UC Riverside poll on budget issues that interviewed 276 respondents, 63% male, with a 42-38-11 split among Democrats, Republicans and independents. He does this with a straight face.
It barely matters what such a flawed poll shows, but I'll mention it anyway. According to 276 people, 57% support the 2/3 requirement for passing a budget, 24% preferred a simple majority, 6% in between, 4% other (?), and 6% don't know. Given the bad methodology, these numbers mean nothing.
But I'll tell you who has historically taken numbers like these as the gospel's truth and used them to mute themselves about any reform efforts for thirty years. That would be the leaders of the California Democratic Party. And they latch on to any poll numbers showing a view like this as a blunt instrument to kick hippies, not a starting point for the political advocacy and opinion leadership that can and should be done to change perspectives.
Here's the problem, in a nutshell. In 1978 California passed Prop. 13, and Democrats have run for cover ever since. They should have put up a fight immediately. But instead, Democrats cowered in fear of losing power, despite the demographic shifts in the state since the mid-1990s, so they lay low and never advocate for the necessary reforms, and buy completely into the myth that the 70's-era tax revolt remains alive and well, and they take public opinion polls like this as static and unchangeable through anything resembling leadership. Obviously Republicans are insane in this state, but they can barely manage 1/3 of the legislature (and if we had a half-decent campaign apparatus among California Democrats they'd lose that too) and shouldn't be feared in any respect. Yet our Democratic leadership exists in a post-1978 fog, a kind of "Sacramento Syndrome," where they've come to love their captors on the right, and have bought into their claims.
Meanwhile, the David Binder memo, with ten times the poll respondents and a clear majority favoring a broad swath of tax increases over spending cuts to deal with the deficit, goes unmentioned by virtually everyone in this state. And in that desert, voters go vainly on a futile search for leadership. They find nothing but shell-shocked politicians.
...As if on cue, view for yourself the craptastic "Post-Budget Reform Push" press release Assembly Speaker Bass just dropped. You'll be thrilled to know that your state government will be more "user-friendly" when leaving AIDS patients and the poor to die on the streets. You can almost smell the fear coming off this press release (on the flip):
The governor went on a bit of a tirade against dissent, first talking smack about U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger's 2007 order reducing the operation of pumps in the Delta to protect the endangered Delta Smelt, then about a three-federal-judge panel's moves toward ordering the release of certain inmates to reduce California's chronic and unconstitutional prison overcrowding, and then about Clark Kelso, the receiver empowered by a federal judge to demand $8 billion from the state to correct unconstitutional, decades-long underfunding prison health care.
"It's not productive for the state to have so many chefs in the kitchen," the governor grumped. "Those are the kinds of things that make it very difficult."
But his ire wasn't just directed at the federal courts. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, he said, opposes him on fiscal policy at every turn, he said: "He's running for Congress now, so that's good."
And he cited state Controller John Chiang's and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer's opposition to his plans to cut state salaries last year. "How does a coach win a basketball game when all of the players are running off in different directions?" Schwarzenegger asked.
Maybe that's why he's so hot for Proposition 1A, which would give the governor new authority to unilaterally reduce some spending for state operations and capital outlay and eliminate some cost-of-living increases, all without legislative approval - shoo, you pesky compromises; begone, consensus! Also, maybe he's forgetting that these federal judges' job is to hold California to its obligations under federal law and the U.S. Constitution, and that the Democratic statewide elected officials he's knocking are with this state's majority party while he's in the minority.
Now you tell me that this Governor is a good-faith operator when he seeks to grab additional executive power without legislative oversight. He's an actor used to getting his way because he has the biggest trailer on the set. And he has little use for those measly checks and balances. It's all so very American. So why not just get rid of them?
Only problem for Mr. Whiny Ass Titty Baby, nobody in the state likes him and they consider him to be a terrible steward of government. That's why they're rejecting his efforts to hamstring the state even further.
A few campaign items that will hopefully tickle your fancy this morning.
• CA-Sen: According to the San Jose Mercury News, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina is "seriously considering challenging" Barbara Boxer for the US Senate. Yeah, that would be challenging, wouldn't it? What a fearsome figure she casts, as a failed corporate CEO who got a $25 million dollar golden parachute while laying off half her company! Who was 20 points down to Boxer in the last poll! "Corporate CEO who got giant bonus for bad work" doesn't seem to me to be the profile of a political challenger anytime soon.
I'm still holding out the possibility that this is an April Fool's Day joke.
• CA-Gov: When you are having major staff problems 14 months before the primary, I'd say your gubernatorial campaign is in trouble.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is saying goodbye to his senior adviser today. And whether he likes it or not, he is saying hello to speculation his upstart gubernatorial bid is struggling.
Senior campaign adviser Jude Barry, who formerly managed the 2006 gubernatorial campaign of then-state controller Steve Westly, let his new boss know that he would resign to pursue other opportunities on March 31.
On his Facebook page, Barry thanked Garamendi but didn't exactly offer an upbeat assessment of the campaign.
"I like John Garamendi and appreciate the opportunity to have worked with him and many other good people on his team, both on the campaign and in the lieutenant governor's office," he wrote. "But at this point, I've done all I can to help him. It doesn't feel right to just hang around the campaign. I wish John and the campaign good luck."
According to CalBuzz, Garamendi has yet to find campaign co-chairs or finance co-chairs, and we all know that winning statewide costs a ridiculous amount of money and essentially a two-year campaign, if not longer. I'm toying with the idea that California ought to have a slate of regional gubernatorial primaries, to encourage retail campaigning and keep costs down in the near term, to allow a greater multiplicity of views. Otherwise we will keep getting the same old hacks and rich people running for these seats. The state is big enough so that it makes a decent amount of sense.
• CA-10: Mark DeSaulnier continues to marshal institutional support for his presumed run for Congress replacing Ellen Tauscher, earning the endorsement of Senate leader Darrell Steinberg. Though he hasn't formally announced, DeSaulnier announced plans to walk districts as early as this week. That's probably a good idea, because a new poll shows that nobody has a decent name ID in the district.
A poll commissioned by potential Democratic congressional candidate and former BART Director Dan Richard shows state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier in statistical dead heat with Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (15 and 13 percent respectively) and Richard trailing at 7 percent.
The poll showed DeSaulnier with a 19 percent favorable approval rating compared with a 9 percent unfavorable while 23 percent did not know. The remaining 49 percent said they had never heard of him. Ouch.
Buchanan received similar numbers: 16 percent favorable approval, 8 percent unfavorable, 29 percent didn't know and 47 percent had never heard of her.
We just saw a special election in upstate New York where over 150,000 people voted. This special election, like most in California, will be lucky to get half that many.
The latest poll numbers for the Governor and the legislature are pitiful, although clearly the electorate has hit Schwarzenegger more over the recent budget crisis.
Overall, just 33% of California adults give Schwarzenegger a positive job rating, barely above the record low of 32% that he hit in 2005 after pushing a package of failed ballot measures in a special election. As recently as January, Schwarzenegger's favorable job rating was at 40%.
Faring worse is the state Legislature: Its 21% approval rating matches the record low it set in several previous polls.
There are a number of other questions in the poll regarding the right to choose and birth control, which you can see here (Short version: Californians still support the right to choose, though parental notification gets narrow support. I would imagine that how the question is asked accounts for that, although this will probably give hope to the forces that have lost parental notification on the ballot three times in a row to try yet again).
What I want to focus on for the moment is those appalling numbers for our political leaders. Given that, as well as the public tendency to vote down ballot initiatives, you'd think the last thing they'd want to do is put the public faces of lawmakers on the budget items in the May 19 special election. You'd be wrong.
Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and ex-Senate leader Dave Cogdill will join hands today for the first campaign event before the upcoming budget special election.
The trio -- alongside other advocates for the package -- will host a press conference this afternoon at a Sacramento-area child development center.
Now, maybe Darrell Steinberg has some grand design where the limits in the spending cap part of the package can be overcome. Or maybe he's perfectly content with ratcheting down spending and making it impossible to revive it no matter what the economic situation. Whatever the reason, it seems like terrible strategy as well as bad policy.
One of the most troubling aspects of the budget deal to us is the budget cap, which promises to make the cuts permanent by making it virtually impossible to restore them in better times. For SEIU members that translates into year after year of higher caseloads for social workers who help children endangered by neglect or abuse; ongoing cuts to healthcare for families struggling with unemployment or low-wage work; a future of shrinking support for families who have children with autism or cerebral palsy; ongoing cuts to hundreds of state services from parks to oversight of hospitals and nursing homes, and ongoing cuts to home care, higher education, K-12 schools, and other vital public services.
We know that we are not alone in our concerns. In fact, Californians do not support the inevitable result of a budget cap - each of these cuts is deeply unpopular; yet legislators have already voted for the cap without a single hearing on the cap's effects, without explaining its effects to their constituents, and without asking for detailed analysis from the Controller, the Treasurer, or independent outside experts.
This is not the way such a serious measure should have been considered or passed. It reflects poorly on the Legislature as a deliberative and transparent body.
With the Governor trying to get in on the Constitutional convention, and offering a vision of reform that trades majority vote for the spending cap, essentially one horrible outcome for another, it's beyond clear that, if the spending cap passes, it will be locked in for a very long time no matter what other reforms are undertaken, and with a baseline spending level "established during one of the, if not the, worst budget crisis in the state's history," as the author writes. This would cripple the state in a fundamental way.
So the latest poll on Prop. 8 has come out from the PPIC, showing the No side still ahead, albeit with a narrower lead than the last time PPIC was in the field.
A majority of Californians still oppose a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the margin is narrowing so notably that the fate of Proposition 8 may hinge on the turnout for the presidential race.
A new poll released late Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California shows Prop. 8 losing 52 to 44 percent among likely voters. That eight-point margin has narrowed from the 14-point spread that PPIC polls found in August and September. Just 4 percent of likely voters remain undecided.
"The vote on Proposition 8 could get closer between now and the election, because we know that Californians are evenly divided in general on whether they favor or oppose gay marriage," said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the PPIC.
There should be a Field Poll on this next week. But I think it'll confirm what we see here - a close race that either side can take. The polling guru Nate Silver of 538 waded into this today.
Both the PPIC and SurveyUSA polls have Barack Obama leading by large (20+ point) margins, so I'm not sure that opponents of the measure can count on some sort of turnout surge above and beyond what is already reflected in the polls. There are evidently fair numbers of Obama/'Yes on 8' tickets, especially among the state's black and Latino populations.
On the one hand, there have been suggestions that there is something of 'Bradley Effect' on polling on gay marriage bans, and that such measures tend to overperform their polls, although a more recent analysis refutes this suggestion.
On the other hand, because ballot measures are confusing, it is usually better to be on the 'No' side of them ... people tend to vote 'no' on things that they don't understand. In this case, that gives an advantage to the marriage equality folks. (It may even be the case that some voters vote 'no', thinking that they're voting no to gay marriage, when in fact the wording of the resolution is such that a 'no' vote protects gay marriage).
I'd peg the 'no' side as about a 55/45 favorite, but not more than that.
Sounds pretty accurate to me. So what can turn the tide in this race at this late date? Well, there are the human interest stories like this ex-mayor of Folsom coming out and opposing Prop. 8 in an emotional display. I think putting a face on whose rights would be eliminated can be powerful. There is also value in putting a spotlight on the extremism and basic indecency coming from the Yes side.
Standing there as the "Yes on 8" rally outside Oakland's Foothill Missionary Baptist Church began to wind down today, I noticed a gentleman in the crowd approach an elderly woman who was holding a "Gay marriage = legal perversion" sign. I eavesdropped - hey, that's my job - as he told her he agreed with her sign completely, but he urged her to ditch it and just use a "Yes on 8" sign instead because her homemade sign's sentiment might turn off some voters.
They're trying to hide their wingnuts, but they're pretty ubiquitous. And this story seems to me to be a good one to push, considering that one of the key arguments of the Yes side concerns classroom indoctrination.
A Salinas High School teacher who distributed "Yes on Proposition 8" literature to her students last week has been asked to refrain from doing so by administrators [...]
The literature that was passed out to students says it is important to protect marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.
The one-page statement also says it is critical to vote yes on Proposition 8, saying its failure would eventually force the state to approve "polygamy, polymory, incest, group and other 'creative' arrangements for marriage."
Think of the children!
But a more controversial idea, expressed by Andrew Sullivan, is that Barack Obama should get involved in this race. Obama has already expressed his opposition to Prop. 8, but Sullivan argues that he should do more.
As expected, one reason Proposition 8, stripping gay couples of marriage equality, is still viable in California is because of strong African-American support. Black Californians back the anti-gay measure by a margin of 20 points, 58 - 38, in the SUSA poll. No other ethnic group comes close to the level of opposition and black turnout is likely to be very high next month.
All this makes it vital, in my opinion, that Barack Obama strongly and unequivocally oppose Proposition 8 in California, rather than keeping mainly quiet as he has done so far. We need him to make an ad opposing it. This is a core test of whether gay Americans should back Obama as enthusiastically as they have in the last month. If he does not stand up for gay couples now, why should we believe he will when he is in office? And if black Americans are the critical bloc that helps kill civil rights for gays, that will not help deepen Obama's governing coalition. It could tear it apart.
I think Sen. Obama is focused on winning a different election right now. Still, even a small measure, like sending out a fundraising appeal to his California list, could speak volumes. And as he's already on the record, it's not like the McCain campaign couldn't already point to the issue if they so chose.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has released a new poll showing Nick Leibham well-positioned to knock off xenophobe Brian Bilbray in CA-50.
A building Democratic wave is about to hit San Diego beaches. The campaign of former prosecutor Nick Leibham is surging, and Leibham is now in a statistical dead heat with incumbent Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray, 42 to 44 percent.
Key Findings
Leibham launched an extremely effective and aggressive mail and television advertising blitz against Bilbray that features a four-star general criticizing Bilbray's vote against the G.I. Bill. As a result, Leibham has pulled into a statistical tie with the incumbent (42 to 44 percent) after trailing by 19 points (35 to 54 percent) as recently as August.
Barack Obama is also running strong in California's 50th Congressional District, leading John McCain by double digits (53 to 41 percent). The environment is now ripe for Democratic victories in a district George W. Bush won by 11 points - twice. Concerns about the economy dominate the political landscape, President Bush is more unpopular than ever, and five out of six voters think the country is off on the wrong track.
Leibham's strong position is due to his appeal beyond Democratic base voters. He currently wins four out of five (79 percent) Democrats, while Bilbray wins three out of four (75 percent) of Republicans. The biggest difference, however, is that Leibham holds a 16-point advantage among voters not aligned with either party (48 to 32 percent)
Democrats have been coming close in this seat ever since the Duke-Stir, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, was sent to jail in 2006. Francine Busby lost a special election and then the general election to Bilbray. The third time may be the charm.
You can now add Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA 50) to the new heap of GOP incumbents who should be suddenly very worried. A new poll, conducted for atty/ex-San Diego City prosecutor Nick Leibham's (D) camp, shows him trailing Bilbray by a miniscule 44-42% margin.
This may feel like deja vu for GOPers. In the '06 special election to fill imprisoned-Rep. Duke Cunningham's (R) term, Bilbray needed $4.5M from the NRCC to skate by a relatively lackluster Dem. What's worrisome for Bilbray is that the cash-starved NRCC can't afford to put anywhere near that amount in his CD to save it this year. And the DCCC has enough cash, if it chooses to enter the contest, to make a difference. The NRCC simply can't afford to overwhelm Dem efforts here like they did in '06.
This is particularly acute in CA-50. Leibham beat Bilbray in fundraising in the third quarter, and they are almost even in cash on hand. Which means that, barring a life raft from the national party, Bilbray is largely on his own. And he doesn't have much to run on. Here he is whining about that powerful ad from Leibham supporter Joe Hoar, a retired Marine General, which ripped Bilbray for voting against the new GI Bill:
Bilbray said he was one of the GI Bill's original co-sponsors, but voted against it after congressional Democrats loaded it up with extraneous goodies, including a "massive tax increase" and a foreign aid package for Africa and Mexico.
"That's the kind of cynical tactics we said 'no' to," the Carlsbad Republican said. "We forced it to come back as a clean bill and we were able to pass it and it was signed into law in June."
Actually, it wasn't a clean bill at all, it was folded into an Iraq appropriation. And he objected to it initially because it was funded by a tax on millionaires.
Liebham supporters have put up an attack website called Wrong Way Bilbray highlighting his votes. Now that the campaign has settled into attacking Bilbray on the issues, with the Democratic wind at their backs, they are gaining traction.
And more than CA-50, what we're seeing is an across the board re-evaluation of Republican incumbents, with multiple GOPers in trouble.
The Capitol Weekly reports, in an article about dimming GOP prospects, that Dana Rohrabacher is in a world of trouble.
The third contest is in the 46th Congressional District in Orange County, where incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher faces Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook.
According to GOP sources, internal polling shows the difference between Rohrabacher and Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, to be within the margin of error, although Rohrabacher has heavily outspent Cook. Hoffenblum believes Rohrabacher faces "possibly the strongest Democrat to run against him since the current district lines were drawn in 2001."
I don't think it's accurate to say that Rohrabacher has heavily outspent Cook. He only spent a paltry $38,000 in the third quarter, though that may be ramping up now. I don't think the NRCC is going to have a lot of money to help him either, though they're making noises about it.
The strapped National Republican Congressional Committee, which at the end of August had $14 million in the bank, compared with $54 million for the Democrats, last week took out an $8 million loan to fund races in the final days of the campaigns. With scant resources, the fight for dollars is intense.
GOP insiders believe some funds may flow to Rohrabacher in the 46th C.D., but that money for any of the others is problematic. Democrats declined to say whether Cook would get last-minute cash from national Democrats.
Calitics Match candidate Debbie Cook is a better Democrat. She supports the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, quality health care for every American, and a post-carbon economy with green energy pushing out the dirty fuels of the past. She would be an amazing legislator. This can be done. She needs your support. Donate here. I will be down in the district over the weekend to get a report.
Here's yet more evidence that the Dems are poised for huge gains in Congress: The Cook Report has released a new set of updated rankings on 25 House races -- and all 25 are shifts in the Dems' direction.
CA-03 Dan Lungren (R) - Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CA-04 OPEN, Doolittle (R) - Likely Republican to Lean Republican
CA-46 Dana Rohrabacher (R) - Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CA-50 Brian Bilbray (R) - Solid Republican to Lean Republican
That's right, Charlie Brown, Nick Leibham and Bill Durston are looking very impressive. And Charlie Cook is being very conservative with these picks. We have the momentum, now we have to go out there and pull it off.
Maybe it's all the endorsements, or that the anti-equality side has thus far been confined to right-wing zealots and religious forces trying to impose their doctrine on the state, but Proposition 8's chances of passage are getting worse.
Opposition to a California ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage is mounting following Attorney General Jerry Brown's move to change the language on the initiative, according to a Field Poll released today.
The poll found that just 38 percent of likely voters support the measure, while 55 percent intend to vote no. That compares with 42 percent in support and 51 percent opposed in July.
Brown amended the Proposition 8 summary language after the state Supreme Court's decision on May 15 to overturn California's previous ban on same-sex marriage.
The pollsters found the amended language played a role in that growing opposition, especially among the 30 percent of likely voters interviewed who had never heard of Prop. 8.
Those voters were much more likely to oppose the measure when read Brown's wording (58 percent against it and 30 percent for it) than those in the same category who were read the old version of Prop. 8 (42 percent against and 37 percent for it), according to the Field Poll.
Yes, how dare that Jerry Brown put into print what the initiative would actually do, which is eliminate the right granted by the state for same-sex couples to marry. The Yes on 8 folks are whining that Brown "interfered" with the election, when actually, words with meaning did.
You can get the internals of the poll here. The initiative is running weak among DTS voters (56-28 against) and young voters (58-31 against). Hispanics are against it 51-36, which actually is not as solid as whites (55-39 against). And the key stat to me is that among divorced or separated voters, Prop. 8 fails 65-33. That makes perfect sense; those who have lived through a bad marriage have less illusions about how equality would ruin its sanctity.
The way I would view this is the way that California initiative watchers commonly view the "Pro" side of the argument. You have to start out 55% or higher before the negative ads kick in. Right now the Yes on 8 folks are outraising the No side 3:2, mostly with out-of-state checks. They're going to blanket the state with ads and so we should not let our guard down.
• CA-04: I love this video from the Charlie Brown campaign. They traveled 412 miles down to Thousand Oaks to talk to constituents of California's Alan Keyes, State Senator and professional office-chaser Tom McClintock. It's really funny and drives the point home that McClintock is a do-nothing at best and a dangerous radical at worst:
And get this, McClintock is now running on the state budget, the Republican version of which has a 19% approval rating. That's like putting Nixon, Bush and Cheney in your campaign ad.
• CA-26, CA-45: Not one but two! Both Russ Warner AND Julie Bornstein have been added to the DCCC "Races To Watch" list. This is a prelude to being listed as Red To Blue candidates. If the D-Trip comes through with some money, maybe threatened incumbents like Dreier will have to stop mouthing off about other GOP races and start paying attention to their own. UPDATE: Mike Lumpkin (CA-52) is on that list now too, which is a pleasant surprise.
• CA-46: When John Fund tries to target a Dem challenger, you know something's going wrong. Fund is sounding the alarm on Debbie Cook, as Dana Rohrabacher tries to greenwash himself with a scheme to build solar-power plants on federal land without environmental impact studies. Fund says that Cook called this "an extreme position," but he chopped the quote:
Democratic challenger and Mayor of Huntington Beach Debbie Cook agrees that the process of approving solar power plants is sluggish and needs to be sped up, but not at the expense of the environment.
"This is just another extreme position by Dana Rohrabacher. What we need to do is come up with a balanced approach that streamlines these projects, because they're critically important to our energy future, but at the same time recognizes the impacts to the environment," Cook said.
Rohrabacher's doing the equivalent of saying he'll grow jobs by hiring 10,000 federally funded serial killers, and then wondering why everyone's worried about the mass death ("You wanted jobs, didn't you?"). There's a sensible way to free up the bottlenecks and a rash one. Rohrabacher chose door #2.
• CA-42: The internal poll results released by Ed Chau are intriguing (showing him up 44-38 after a mix of positive and negative information released on the candidates), but I don't think candidates who have minimal bank accounts should do polls stating the numbers after a mix of information if they don't have the money to get that information out. But if Gary Miller truly has a 28% re-elect number as the poll states, he could be in trouble.
We've been hearing rumblings about this poll for a while, but it's finally been released. In the 26th District, where Bush rubber stamp David Dreier hasn't had a legitimate opponent practically since being elected in 1980, Russ Warner is absolutely within striking difference with 88 days to the election.
The poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, has all kinds of interesting information. IN the baseline poll, Dreier does not reach 50%
CA-26 (GQRR, margin of error +/- 4.9%)
Dreier 49
Warner 37
The sample size is pretty small, but Dreier not breaking 50 after being the Representative for 28 years is significant. What's more, after information about each candidate is delivered to those polled, the numbers change dramatically.
Dreier 47
Warner 44
Other significant findings:
• Independent voters in the initial poll, before bios, support Warner 49-32.
• 63 percent disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, with half of all voters (50 percent) strongly disapproving.
• Only 45 percent of voters say they approve of the job Dreier is doing as Congressman, while 33 percent disapprove.
• Nearly four out of five voters (78 percent) say the country is off on the wrong track.
• Barack Obama is in a statistical tie with John McCain in the district, 44 percent to 47 percent, and their favorables are identical (46 fav-36 unfav).
• Dreier has high negatives in the district. An equal number of those polled have a negative opinion of Dreier (32 percent) as have a positive opinion of him (32 percent).
The race is going to come down to resources. Right now, Dreier has a huge war chest, and he's undoubtedly going to use it to smear Warner and drive up his negatives. However, if Warner has enough cash to compete, things will get very interesting in the 26th.
(Courtney is the head of SEIU State Council. Good stuff in this poll. - promoted by Julia Rosen)
The Service Employee International Union (SEIU) California State Council is releasing our new poll today showing 65 percent of California Republican voters say GOP Legislators should work with Democrats to achieve a practical compromise to produce a balanced budget - including revenue increases. Just 29 percent of those surveyed agree GOP Legislators should resist any tax increase even if it means gridlock.
As you know, California's State Legislature is four weeks overdue in passing this year's state budget. According to our State Controller John Chiang's office, the gridlock in Sacramento is causing a ripple of concern and crisis throughout California communities as the State's $2 billion reserve fund for community health clinics and small hospitals ran out of money earlier this week, July 28. Schools, community colleges and local governments, which typically receive a significant portion of their funding at the end of this month, will not because there is no state budget.
In addition, Governor Schwarzenegger has threatened to sign an Executive Order today which would lay off 22,000 employees and force another nearly 200,000 state workers to work for $6.55 an hour - well under the poverty level for a California family of four. Controller Chiang has vowed to refuse to comply with this illegal threat and meaningless stop-gap strategy. We appreciate his responsible leadership and willingness to stand up to Governor Schwarzenegger.
Here are the details on our survey... [Note by Julia: edited to put it on the flip.]
I hope that the Speaker and the President Pro Tem and everyone that wants to get out of town and maybe give in on the budget pays attention to these latest Field Poll numbers.
The latest Field Poll shows that 54 percent of California voters hold a positive image of the Democratic party, while just 31 percent have a favorable view of the Republican party. In addition, likely voters were asked their pre-election party preferences for Congress in the fall election. That measure finds Democrats with a twenty-point advantage over the GOP, 48 percent to 28 percent.
The Republican Party in California is a dead letter, and there's only one time a year they matter at all - when they hijack the budget negotiations. They will continue to do so as long as they are not made to pay at the ballot box.
But in order for that to occur, Democrats must show some leadership. And Speaker Bass' statement, which obviously hinted at some kabuki dance among the leadership and the Governor, using the livelihoods of 200,000 state workers as a prop, was completely unhelpful. The positive image that Californians have of Democrats is based on national trends. If the state Democrats undermine it through giving up on the budget and succumbing to yet another compromise based mostly on deep cuts, without rectifying the overall structural revenue deficit, that image will disappear. Because the impact will be extremely visible locally. The Governor has failed working families time and again, and this latest outrage to threaten state workers, who never caused this crisis, to bear the full brunt of the pain, is a teachable moment. Whether it's Controller Chiang and Treasurer Lockyer simply saying "no" or the leadership hammering Schwarzenegger for this cruel proposal, some Democrat has to show leadership in this vacuum, or otherwise there will be no refracted glory in the Golden State from an expected Democratic victory in November.
And even this threat should be a part of every TV ad, radio spot and direct mail piece for every Assembly and Senate candidate with a shot at flipping a seat.
...quick update, the indications are that John Chiang is going to hold this up and send it into the courts, if necessary. Meanwhile, SEIU is rallying at the Capitol at noon today in response; they represent over 95,000 state workers. And Patty Berg has a good article in the Cap Weekly that frames the situation nicely:
Many people think government spending doesn't affect them. They have jobs, don't depend on subsidized childcare, are too young or too healthy for government healthcare. So they go throughout their day unaware of the myriad benefits they take from government.
They wake up and make coffee with water that arrives in their pipes with the help of water districts. It is clean and safe because of regulations and standards set and enforced by government. They eat breakfast made up of food products that are regulated and inspected.
They go to work on a road built and maintained by tax dollars. Or they ride a bus run by a municipal authority. No matter how they travel, they do it where traffic rules and general security enforced by public safety officers.
It's true that some of us can pay to educate our children without government assistance. But almost no one could maintain their own police and fire departments. And none of us could ever build our own roads and sewers and highways and bridges. We only have those things because we share, because we bundle our resources through taxes and we elect people to spend it in ways that benefits all of us.
And yet, the every-man-for-himself crowd tells us that government is ripping us off.
That's quite good, but I wish it wasn't just in the Sacramento insider paper.
But just you wait until St. BBQ starts cranking up those ads and spending an entire month non-stop in the state! After all, he's from the West, so people here like him! He's a maverick! He's-
Highlights of the latest Field Poll of Californians likely to vote in the upcoming November
presidential election reveal the following:
• Democrat Barack Obama now leads Republican John McCain by twenty-four points (54%
to 30%) in California.
• More Democratic Primary voters think Obama should not select Hillary Clinton as his vice-
presidential running mate (48%) as feel he should (40%). Yet, the decision of whether
Obama does or doesn't choose Clinton would have little effect on how these voters would
vote in the fall.
• Obama has consolidated the support of California Democrats and non-partisans who voted
for Clinton in California's February 5th primary election. The poll shows Obama preferred
over McCain by 80% to 8% among these voters.
• Three times as many Obama voters (51%) as McCain voters (17%) say they are "very
enthusiastic" about supporting their candidate for president in November.
• Obama's image rating among the overall California electorate (63% favorable vs. 26%
unfavorable) is more positive than McCain's (48% to 38%).
If you factor out undecided voters, it's 61-34. And Obama is leading 64% to 18% among DTS voters. McCain's only at 44% in the INLAND areas.
But McCain hasn't even got rolling yet! He needs to spend 6 weeks in Fresno just soaking in the local coverage! I'm demanding that he come to Fresno and Bakersfield to make this a race. He can do it! Come on, McCain, who are you going to believe, some poll or the heart of a maverick?
As you know, we need 6 seats in the Assembly to reach a 2/3 majority, and the latest news shows that one of those six is looking good.
I just got the results of an internal poll taken in AD-80 which shows Democrat Manuel Perez with an 11-point lead over Gary Jeandron in the seat currently held by Republican Bonnie Garcia.
AD-80: poll conducted June 10-12, 2008.
Sampling error is +/- 4.9%.
Manuel Perez: 47%
Gary Jeandron: 36%,
18% undecided.
The generic ballot tracks with the poll, as 49% desire a Democrat in the Assembly, to 36% for a Republican. The registration advantage is in the double digits as well, and the polling memo notes that almost 40% of DTS/Independents and nearly 20% of Republicans are Latino. Perez is the right fit for this district. And once bio material is presented, Perez' lead jumps to 52-39. Perez' name ID is higher in the district, too.
Best of all, Perez is a better Democrat, a transformational progressive who will be a real asset to the Assembly and not just a cog in the wheel.
This is not only good news for Perez, but Julie Bornstein as well. I fully expect Perez to have a strong grassroots operation throughout the district, and where that overlaps with CA-45, that means more Democrats coming out to vote.
People are probably going to fixate on the hard numbers in this latest poll on marriage equality from the LA Times, showing the constitutional amendment passing by 54-35. However, there are a few additional items to consider.
• We all know that initiatives need to be well ahead to start before the advertising ramps up and the No side chips away at the lead. This poll would traditionally signal an initiative in the danger zone. However, the initial polls for Prop. 22 in 2000 were at 58%, and it rose to 61% by election day. Opinions may be fairly hardened on this one.
• In the internals, however, there is much good news for marriage equality advocates.
More than half of Californians said gay relationships were not morally wrong, that they would not degrade heterosexual marriages and that all that mattered was that a relationship be loving and committed, regardless of gender.
That's really, really good news. 54% say same-sex relationships are not morally wrong, and 59% say that "as long as the two love each other, it doesn't matter" what gender the two people are. It suggests that the only hurdle is the terminology of "gay marriage," based on lingering tradition. I think that can be cleared to a degree.
• There's more confirmation that this is generational.
Overall, the proportion of Californians who back either gay marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples has remained fairly constant over the years. But the generational schism is pronounced. Those under 45 were less likely to favor a constitutional amendment than their elders and were more supportive of the court's decision to overturn the state's current ban on gay marriage. They also disagreed more strongly than their elders with the notion that gay relationships threatened traditional marriage.
Considering that the likely Presidential nominee is poised to bring Americans under 45 to the polls in record numbers, it's certainly better to be on the side that appeals to them.
• If Arnold's opposition to the measure is publicized, which is likely, that does seem to change minds:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vetoed two bills sanctioning gay marriage, has said that he respects the court's decision and that he will not support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Californians were split on his stance, with 45% agreeing and 46% disagreeing.
I think this is a pretty good place to be considering the circumstances. The marriage equality movement has powerful advocates and the weight of justice and fairness on their side. It's whether enough people have gotten used to the concept by November. I think the poll shows that's very possible.
