It was just a couple of nights ago that Keith Olbermann was challenging us, in one of his "Special Comments", to rise up in the streets and take back this country.
He pointed out that the only way those on the left were going to be able to fight against those who are looking to get all "Tea Party" is to be as angry and as organized and as aggressive as the Tea Party community, and if we're smart, we'll take him up on that challenge.
But if you really want to push "professional" Democrats to the left, most especially this President, and you want to do it in time to impact the '12 cycle, the only way to do it is to run a candidate in primary contests that either moves the conversation your way...or leaves you with a surprising new Candidate.
And right here, right now, we actually have a chance to do exactly that - and that's why, in today's discussion, I'm going to challenge Olbermann right back.
So-called "Top 2" primary makes intraparty general elections possible
by Brian Leubitz
The top-2 primary system yields some strange results. You could end up with two members of the same party. Or you could end up with a non-major party candidate in the top 2. Both of these situations lead to some uncomfortable questions for the party. Under the current rules, party entities are not allowed to endorse non-democrats. However, if there are no Democrats in the general election, what then? CDP Chair John Burton just released an email about his take on the "top 2" primary system and independents.
What are we to do if a "Decline-to-State" supports the issues we do and shares our values as Democrats? I personally know several people who became "Decline-to-State" in opposition to Iraq and Afghanistan, but favor environmental protection, gay rights, and other progressive issues. If local Democrats are presented with a dilemma of a progressive declined-to-state vs. a reactionary Republican in the run off election, I believe the local delegates should have the option of whether to endorse.
The July Executive Board meeting happening next weekend will deal with these issues. The changes proposed by the CDP Rules committee can be found here (PDF. In short, the rules changes allow a DTS voter to apply to get an endorsement where there are no Democrats on the ballot.
Take a look at the changes, there is a lot to think about. I'm pretty inclined to support this, but I'd like to hear others' thoughts. Full email over the flip.
You may not have noticed, but the Regional California Republican Party is having a meeting this weekend, which they do semi-annually. However, this one looks like it may have a bit more long-term ramifications. It seems the Republicans have decided to take on the role of pre-primary electoral process.
As you probably recall, the Proposition 14 system ends the partisan primary process and replaces it with a so-called "top-two" system, where the top two vote getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. To be sure, that is something of an infuriating system for members of both parties. But, the Republicans have decided to do something about it. They'll be sending out a ballot to every registered Republican, beginning in the 2014 statewide election.
The plan was not without controversy, and it looks like it wasn't going to happen until the modern day Reagan stepped into the fray.
the vote capped often contentious debate at the state GOP convention being held in Sacramento in which outgoing state party Chairman Ron Nehring put forth a nomination plan that have would have let local party officials come up with endorsements. That sparked criticism from some delegates that the endorsement process would have been decided by a small cadre of political insiders.
"The Republican Party will in essence be conducting its own party primary," McClintock said. "It means in essence that we'll be doing the job that the secretary of state once did. It's going to require logistically a lot of work. ... The important question is how we will restore the role of the rank-and-file voters across this state.""(SacBee)
This should be an interesting experiment for the Republicans. How this works in practice, however, is still a big question.
Back in 2008, I pointed out a suspicious flyer that looked like it held the Democratic Party endorsements, but didn't. Well, it's back! Take your pick: Democrat or Independent, you probably got a flyer this week that looks like a very handy voter guide.
And the source of those recommendations?
This time I dug a bit deeper, looking up the return address. It turns out that the flyer comes from Political consultant Larry Levine, who is happy to endorse you on his flyer - for a price.
I've been warning about this on the blog and in every forum I come across, Prop 14 will result in more Dem-on-Dem fights. It will be a drain on the Democratic party, and will result in a net loss for the party in terms of resources. Don't trust me? Well, how about the Center for Govermental Studies. Goo-Goos seem to like them, anyway. So, how will they like this:
CGS broke down the registration and voter-turnout figures for recent primary elections and found that more than one-third of general election races could end up being fought between two members of the same party. Most of those single-party contests would be between two Democrats (largely in Los Angeles County and the Bay Area). Just two of the races analyzed in the study would have resulted in a general election between two Republicans.
The report also found that campaigns would be "significantly more expensive" under Proposition 14, mainly because candidates would have to campaign to a broader base of voters, as opposed to just voters in their party, in the primary.(SacBee)
In other words, Dem primaries end up getting played out twice. But because there just aren't that many Republicans left in the state, theirs end up as snoozers into the general. You can read the full report (PDF) here.
Prop 14 is bad for the Democratic Party, bad for third parties, and well, not so great even for the Republican Party. It will make for much more expensive elections, and thus politicians that are even more susceptible to the sultry tones of the corporate lobbyist.
Yet somehow, St. Abel Maldonado is playing this out as a good government measure. As the results in Washington and Louisiana have shown, this is anything but good government.
Friends, I have some big news today: I'm running for Governor of California, in the June 8th Democratic primary, challenging Jerry Brown as a progressive.
From my four years as MoveOn.org's founding Executive Director (2001-2005), and an organizing career almost two decades long, I know what it takes to win:
* Take bold, principled stands on the key issues
* Run a vigorous grass-roots campaign
* Make the best possible use of the Internet
This week we celebrate President Obama's signing of landmark health care reform legislation into law. Thanks to this historic bill, 32 million Americans will gain access to health insurance, health care will become more affordable, and no American will ever again be denied coverage when they get sick or because of pre-existing conditions.
But before the ink was even dry on President Obama's signature, the attorneys general of 13 states -- led by Florida Republican AG Bill McCollum, trying to score political points in his campaign for governor -- immediately filed a lawsuit to try to block the new law in the courts. One of my Republican opponents, Tom Harman, is even encouraging current California Attorney General Jerry Brown to join them.
Protecting kids from online predators has always been one of my highest priorities.
While serving as chief counsel for Facebook, I worked with Attorneys General across the nation to help build a safer internet -- and I've seen some of the ideas I've championed enacted into law.
One of those ideas I championed was requiring convicted sex offenders to provide their online identifiers as part of their registrations, and as a result, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was able to announce that more than 3,500 registered New York sex offenders were removed from MySpace and Facebook under the state's "e-STOP" law that we crafted together.
On Tuesday, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris held a public media event to introduce a bill she is sponsoring in the legislature that purports to keep online predators off social networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace.
Gavin Newsom's decision to quit the race for governor has left California Democrats with just one option - two-term governor Jerry Brown, back for his third term after nearly 30 years. For the first time in a very, very long time (before 1934), there will not be a contested Democratic primary where there is an open seat in the governor's office.
This is not a positive development for the California Democratic Party or the future of our state. A contested Democratic gubernatorial primary is essential to not only a strong Democratic campaign in the fall of 2010, but more importantly, to rebuilding the shattered ruins of a once-golden state.
We need to first look at the big picture. As we're seeing in Virgina and New Jersey gubernatorial races, the deciding factor is whether the Obama voters of 2008 will turn out to elect Democrats in state gubernatorial races. The answer to that question is clear: where the candidate espouses openly progressive positions, as Jon Corzine has begun to do in New Jersey, he has some success in motivating the Obama voters to return to the polls and elect a Democratic governor. Whereas Creigh Deeds couldn't distance himself from Obama quickly enough and took anti-progressive positions, and now faces a resounding defeat at the hands of a wingnut.
To those who say "it can't happen here," I say your understanding of California politics is superficial. For over a century California voters default to electing Republicans to the governor's office. Since 1900 only four Democrats have served as California governor. Two of them served essentially one term: Culbert Olson was beaten by Earl Warren in 1942, and you know what happened to Gray Davis in 2003.
The other two were named Edmund G. Brown. The younger of the two Edmund G. Browns is the last man standing in the 2010 Democratic primary for governor. Now you might think that is a positive sign for Dems, that one of the only two Democrats to serve two full terms as CA governor since 1900 is likely to be the party's nominee in 2010. After all, Jerry Brown has a decent poll lead over the three Republicans, so we should be fine in 2010, right?
I am much less confident. A contested primary will only make Brown a stronger candidate should he indeed win that primary - and more importantly, it would give Democrats and DTS voters a chance to weigh in on the future of California, to have a real discussion about how to fix a broken state.
• It's two days until the kickoff of Netroots Nation, and among the many luminaries attending will be Gavin Newsom, who is introducing green jobs expert Van Jones at the Sunday morning keynote. The fact that he's running for Governor has nothing to do with this, I'm sure... UPDATE: LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo will also be on a panel on health care, talking about his many investigations into insurance industry pratices. That should be an interesting panel for health care activists, as it features nyceve and Ezra Klein, as well as the mother of Nataline Sarkysian, who died while waiting for her insurer to approve an operation.
• The final numbers on the June election were miserable, with a record low (for a regular election) 28.2% turnout. A ridiculous amount of voters cast ballots by mail - 58.7%, also a record. VBM is far stronger in Northern California than in the Los Angeles area, and not surprisingly turnout is higher up there as well. This is really changing how elections ought to be conducted, as we move to a VBM state. Campaign operatives need to understand this quickly.
• Hey, we had a bank run at IndyMac yesterday. Fun! The FDIC insures up to $100,000, so consumers should be fine for the most part, but what you're going to see is eroding confidence in regional banks as the financial crisis widens.
• Another leader at the LA Times is out, this time publisher David Hiller. I'm sure Sam Zell and his team can make loads of money on the paper if they just fire everybody and go to robot reporters.
• AB 97 cleared the legislature yesterday, which would ban trans fats at California restaurants and bakeries. It now goes to the governor. He did sign a ban on trans fats in school cafeterias last year.
You wouldn't know this unless you follow these things closely, but this coming Sunday, June 15, is very significant in the future of Democratic politics. On that day at the California Democratic Party executive board meeting in Burlingame, 19 men and women from throughout the state will be voted in as DNC members. Those elected will take their positions after the Democratic National Convention in August, and will serve through the DNC in 2012. Here's the list (it's a PDF) of names who will appear on the ballot - 9 men, 9 women and the 19th-highest vote-getter regardless of gender will win the election.
Now, why is this important? These 19 DNC members will be part of the organization that will need to decide how to reform our completely broken primary process that almost turned a historic nomination season into utter chaos. There is no other issue - not the war, not poverty, not the economy, not health care, nothing - where DNC members will make any kind of a difference compared to primary reform. I know a lot of party members read this site, so let this be a jumping off point for discussion. No California e-board member should vote to elect any of these candidates without knowing their plans for primary reform. And on the flip, here are a few ideas.
I think the results of yesterday's primaries had some good news and some bad, and also brought to light the depressing realities of California politics.
• Turnout was horrendous. These numbers will go up, but with all precincts reporting we're looking at 22% turnout, the lowest in recent memory, far lower than 2006 and 2004. There still is not much of a real political culture in California with respect to state politics, and I think that's something we have to recognize. I saw a lot of activism and citizen-led activity leading up to these primaries which made me somewhat hopeful, but it did not translate at the ballot box. Of course, with so many uncontested primaries there was little at stake. But as a measure of intensity of the electorate, there wasn't much.
• IE campaigns win elections. The outsized influence of IE campaigns is something we have to understand and work with. Even the races where, as Robert said, progressives won in state legislature primaries, there were in general a lot of IEs, funded mostly by labor, on their behalf. Rod Wright basically bought a seat in SD-25, with well over a million dollars of independent expenditures funded mostly by tobacco and business interests. And the size of Bob Blumenfield's victory in AD-40 suggests the importance of IEs. There isn't going to be a lot of appetite for reforming this from a set of state legislators who have IEs to thank for their positions in office. Clean money elections is obviously the killer app, and I'm glad Loni Hancock will be in the State Senate to carry the bill, but it's pretty depressing how easily these seats can be bought, particularly in low-turnout primaries where almost nobodyis paying attention.
• Measuring Congressional intensity. Looking at turnout numbers in the primaries isn't really a great measure of how the candidates will do in the general elections, but it's a good benchmark of base support. Among the winners were Bill Durston (within 8,000 votes of Dan Lungren) and Charlie Brown (just nipped by Tom McClintock in raw votes, but he got 42,000-plus out to vote for him in one of the highest-turnout elections anywhere). Among the losers? Well, pretty much everyone else. But Nick Leibham can't be happy about his totals, and he has a MAJOR activist support problem in the 50th district that he has to recognize and fix. Russ Warner did sort of in the middle, well enough but with the need for improvement. Considering she faced two challengers, Julie Bornstein didn't do too badly either.
• Incumbency can be defeated, but it's tough. Carole Migden is something like the first incumbent to be beaten in a primary in California in a dozen years. Mervyn Dymally was a sitting Assemblyman and something of a legendary figure so I'll call him a sort-of beaten incumbent. But it took lots of money to unseat these two and they had their share of political scandal. Otherwise, it's just real hard to get your message out.
• PDA is less than worthless. I love and respect my friends in Progressive Democrats of America for their advocacy of progressive causes. As an electoral engine, they are simply not a legitimate organization. Only Cheryl Ede can hold her head up high as a PDA-backed candidate, and honestly I think that had more to do with Leibham than her. Mary Pallant had PDA backing, more resources than the other two candidates in the race, and was thrashed by someone who suspended her candidacy and came back just weeks before the vote. It takes more than screaming about the system and emailing frantically back and forth and writing resolutions to build a power base, and PDA needs to learn in a hurry.
• The legislative battlegrounds. I'm very excited by Manuel Perez' win in AD-80, where he was the only candidate to show strength in all parts of the district (he actually finished a close second in both Riverside and Imperial Counties). He has a lot of momentum going into November against Gary Jeandron, the former sheriff of Palm Springs. And Democrats got about 5,000 more votes than Republicans in that seat. If Perez can unify the factions, he wins. AD-78 looks good, too. Marty Block squeaked out a win, and overall Democrats got over 8,000 more votes. Joan Buchanan did well in AD-15 and has a decent base of support - this will be a close race against Abram Wilson. I like what Alyson Huber did in AD-10, getting more votes than anyone on the ballot, Republican or Democratic. In AD-26, John Eisenhut, a farmer, got almost as many votes in his unopposed primary as Republican Bill Berryhill did in his. Ferial Masry is a longshot in AD-37, but the Democratic vote was within 5,000 of Republican Audra Strickland's total. Those are the 6 races that get us to 2/3.
In the State Senate, we'll see what becomes of the Morris write-in. But the good news was in SD-19, where Hannah-Beth Jackson got 47,000-plus votes to Tony Strickland's 50,000-plus. That's relative parity, and a good place to be. Because of the coattails Barack Obama will bring, I don't mind some deficit between Democratic and Republican numbers in the primary, because there will be lots and lots of new voters coming out to support the nominee in the fall who will pull the lever for downticket candidates.
That's what I've got for now, I'm sure we'll all be poring over the numbers in the days to come.
CA-01: Mike Thompson beating Mitchell Clogg 86-13 so far.
CA-02: Jeff Morris is winning big.
CA-03: Bill Durston is only 3,000 votes behind Dan Lungren thus far.
CA-04: Tom McClintock has jumped out to a 53-38 lead.
CA-26: Russ Warner up 65-35.
CA-37: Richardson up 76-15.
CA-42: Ed Chau up 51-31 over Michael Williamson with Ron Shepston at 17%.
CA-46: Debbie Cook up 80-20.
CA-50: Nick Leibham up 55-45 thus far. Cheryl Ede is hanging tough.
CA-51: The Libertarian candidate is nicknamed "Frodo".
CA-52: Mike Lumpkin is up 58-42; Duncan L. Hunter is up 74-14.
CA-53: Susan Davis up 89-10.
UPDATE:
In CA-02, Jeff Morris and Arjinderpal Sekhon are within 100 votes.
In CA-04, McClintock's looking good to win, up 53-38. Right now Charlie Brown has attracted more votes than McClintock.
In CA-24, Marta Jorgensen is looking incredibly strong, up 57-29 on Jill Martinez with Mary Pallant at 13%. That's likely to change. (NOTE: the precincts in are up in Santa Barbara County, where Jorgensen was focused)
In CA-26, Warner is up 62-38 on Cynthia Matthews.
In CA-41, it looks very, very close. Tim Prince at 35% with Rita Ramirez-Dean at 26% and two other candidates in there.
In CA-42, Ed Chau is still ahead with 47% of the vote.
In CA-43, Joanne Gilbert is giving Joe Baca a run for his money so far. 62-38 is good against an incumbent.
The San Diego numbers are the same as above.
UPDATE II: The AP has some projections (the following are contested seats).
CA-01: Mike Thompson
CA-04: Charlie Brown
CA-08: Nancy Pelosi
CA-12: Jackie Speier
CA-33: Diane Watson (she's killing those two jokers)
CA-53: Susan Davis
[UPDATE] The link to the LA Times' results are here. In what I imagine are early absentee numbers, Prop. 98 is getting killed 62-38, while Prop. 99 is way up 67-33. I found some early Congressional numbers from LA County, too. Ed Chau is up in CA-42, Russ Warner in CA-26.
SD-23: Fran Pavley is up 60-39 over Lloyd Levine with 2% reporting.
SD-25: Mervyn Dymally up on Rod Wright 45-33 with 3% in.
AD-40: Bob Blumenfield up with Laurette Healey in second at this hour, Stuart Waldman in third, 2% in.
[UPDATE by Julia] Leno/Midgen/Nation is the one everyone seems to be obsessively refreshing, myself included. Here are the latest numbers.
Mark Leno 10,230 37.5 %
Carole Migden 8,354 30.6 %
Joe Nation 8,697 31.9 %
And the latest with 7.4% reporting.
Mark Leno 17,421 34.9 %
Carole Migden 13,474 26.9 %
Joe Nation 19,019 38.2 %
Manuel Perez is at once scholarly, passionate, and gracious. He knows public policy from both the planning and outcome perspectives, so give him a topic, and he'll give you a progressive and practical answer, with footnotes.
Manuel Perez wasn't going to be at the Rancho Mirage Library for the candidate forum Friday night. He was scheduled to be the honoree at an event for a coalition of fellow nonprofits, and they had already rescheduled the event around his campaign once. But we finally convinced him that a candidate has no choice but to be there, and he was brilliant. The interaction among the 80th candidates showed a clear frontrunner, the focus of both Rick Gonzales and Greg Pettis's attention. Manuel pivoted on both challenges, and his scope of understanding about education, healthcare, jobs and the environment was finally on display in the proper context.
• Obviously everyone is going to be working hard for their causes and candidates, so it may be a little quiet around here. I'll be out walking all day tomorrow. Oh, and don't vote for the racist guy, Bill Johnson, as a Judge of the Superior Court (Office number 125) in LA County.
• Yesterday was the deadline for bills to get passed out of their chamber of origin, and the Assembly passed major subprime mortgage legislation, without help from Republicans (6 of them abstained despite being seated right in the chamber). This bill has some good homeowner assistance elements that will allow people to restructure their financing before foreclosure. A mortgage bill has also passed the State Senate, so some form of legislation will hopefully get to the governor post haste.
• One of the biggest problems with the housing crisis is that, as home sale prices lower, homeowners are reassessing their value and getting their property tax lowered, decreasing state revenue yet more.
• Sticking in the shiv before riding off into the sunset, Fabian Nuñez writes a puzzling op-ed in the Sacramento Bee approving of the Governor's horrible idea to borrow against future lottery revenue. Considering that the only sustainable solution to the permanent crisis mode that we have in our budget is to reorganize the tax structure instead of constantly borrowing, I have no idea why any Democrat would veer so far off message and undermine the new Speaker's ability to move forward. What's more, lotteries are regressive taxes on the poor.
• One spot where there will be a lot of action on Tuesday is in Ventura County, where Democrats now outnumber Republicans and which could have contested elections in the Assembly, Senate and US Congress. However, the LA Times shows its political acumen by writing:
One of the more closely watched contests on Tuesday will be the Democratic primary in the 24th Congressional District. Insurance agent Mary Pallant of Oak Park; Marta Jorgensen, a Solvang educator; and Oxnard businesswoman Jill Martinez are running.
Marta Jorgensen quit the race over a month ago and endorsed Martinez. Way to go, LAT.
• Excellent news out of Los Angeles: there's been a $1 million dollar settlement with Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for their dumping homeless patients on Skid Row. They will also be monitored by a US Attorney for five years. This unethical practice has reached a reasonable conclusion. Hollywood Presbyterian deserved punishment.
• Trying to get rid of marijuana grow houses in Arcata is like trying to get rid of the Pacific Ocean on the California coast.
Today the results of the February 5 primary become official. The final spread in the popular vote between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is 8.9%. Clinton garnered 51.8% to Obama's 42.9%. The final delegates will be 203 for Clinton to 167 for Obama. This roughly averages out to the exact spread in the head-to-head popular vote (Hillary got 54.6% of the head-to-head vote and 54.8% of the delegates), so the convoluted delegate apportionment system worked in the case of California.
I'm also pleased to announce that 47,153 "double bubble" votes were counted in Los Angeles County. The expectation on the day of the election was that none of these ballots from decline to state voters would be counted, but the pressure put on by the Courage Campaign and other groups led to this result. And by the way, 51% of those votes went to Hillary Clinton and 42% to Barack Obama, so those who insisted upon viewing this through some partisan lens can respectfully shut the fuck up. This was about voter rights and remedying disenfranchisement; it always was, even though it had no material impact on the overall election.
Yesterday was my last day working the polls in Santa Clara County - Auros and I have moved to San Mateo County (we made sure to have overlapping residency in scc so we weren't in violation for the election) so we'll be working up here next round. We were in precinct 2005, college terrace Palo Alto, right next to Stanford campus. We've worked that precinct before - me twice and him 3 times. The last time and this time he was precinct inspector. Fortunately this time they gave us the larger chapel room instead of crowding us into the tiny fireside room.
This election of course we were on paper ballots (optical scan) as our primary voting method but we still had one sequoia touchscreen machine as an option for disabled voters. This became relevant later.
For those who may not know how the California Democratic delegate delegation system works, let me give a brief explanation as to how the delegates are divvied up. The 241 district delegates are proportioned by the congressional district's vote. The 129 at-large delegates are divvied up by the statewide percentage vote, though adjustments were necessary since the sum of Clinton's and Obama's percentages was less than 100%. I summed up their totals (93.9%) and divided Clinton's 52.3% and Obama's 41.6% by the 93.9% to obtain 55.7% for Clinton and 44.3% for Obama. Then I distributed the delegates based on those percentages.
Update: I readjusted some districts as well as the statewide delegates when I found out about the 2-block system for the statewide delegates. I don't know how PLEO delegates are distributed, so I just took Hermit9's word and gave Clinton 71 statewide delegates and Obama 58. The raw numbers of delegates changed slightly in Obama's favor, though Hillary still takes about 55% of the delegates.
Over the flip is the table of results based on the numbers as of 3:30 AM Pacific Standard Time. I will have one more update when all results are in.
51.4% reporting
Clinton 53.6%
Obama 38.3%
Edwards 6.3%
That's Angelides-like numbers for Barack. Maybe you CAN'T run a ground campaign with precinct captains in California. Maybe it is too big.
Now, there's a long way to go, and I do expect it to tighten, but not a lot. Clinton SMOKED Obama in the hard-to-reach areas of SoCal and the Central Valley.
In some key districts, however, we're seeing interesting stuff. CA-01 is 9 points, CA-04 is 6, and CA-05 is 4. All are trending to Obama late, and all are 5-delelgate districts. 2 out of 3 up there would be big. CA-30 and CA-36, the Westside of LA and the South Bay, essentially, are 13 point leads for Clinton right now but it's very early and there are a lot of votes to go, and they too are trending Obama. San Diego is starting to trend that way too but he's further behind.
Obama might "get a break on change" and bring this within 15-20 delegates, yet.
Oh, and on the props, the gaming compacts will pass, community college funding will lose, and Prop.93 is getting close to being a loss. It's 47.3%-52.7% with over half the votes in.
...Edwards is playing the Nader role in four districts right now, where his total is more than the margin of victory: CA-01, CA-04, CA-05, and CA-14. Now, this isn't a perfect analogy, since Edwards voters don't all go to Obama. But it's certainly interesting.
CA-30 and CA-36 continue to tighten. CA-30 will be a wash (3-3), but it's something of a bellweather.
UPDATE: 63.9% reporting:
Clinton 53.2%
Obama 39.6%
Edwards 5.6%
Still 73% of CA-09 precincts in Alameda county outstanding. This will tighten further. I think Obama will come up just short in CA-01 and CA-04, however.
A couple developments: Obama just took the lead in CA-14. And he's made it extremely close in CA-53, a 5-delegate district. Also, the numbers are closing just enough in a few of those big spreads to mask the drubbing and maybe get to a 2-2 split. Only 4 of those are lost causes right now.
We'll see where this leads, but people might wake up tomorrow morning and see how big a victory this was for Hillary Clinton, and the narrative might change.
Prop. 93 lost. Tomorrow is a whole new ballgame for the California Legislature, but that's for another time.
UPDATE: OK, this is REALLY it this time. Hillary Clinton will score between a 30-50 delegate victory depending on outlying districts, and it'll probably move closer to Obama's end because he's gaining in all the late results.
CA-01 is really fun; about 100 votes separate the two. CA-05, CA-50 and CA-53 are the other keys; Obama needs to win those. CA-09, in Alameda County, has barely come in at all - that could have an effect on the overall numbers, and if Obama starts running up the score there he could get a 4-2 split. In a bunch of other races, he needs to stay close enough to keep it 2-2 (CA-16, CA-18, CA-41, CA-43, CA-45).
