Prop 55 (School bonds): As of late Tuesday, this one looks touch-and-go, leading only slightly with 45% of the precincts reporting. [I may amend this Wednesday morning to reflect later returns.]
Prop 56 (More flexibility to legislature on budget and taxes): It's clearly losing by a large margin. This had active opposition from some business groups and the campaign for it was visible but low-profile, from what I could see.
Prop 57 ($15 billion bond issue) and Prop 58 (requirments for balanced budget and reserves): Both winning by large margins, Prop 58 more so than Prop 57. Neither of these measures are particularly heinous in themselves, although I opposed both of them for reasons mentioned in earlier posts. They essentially let both parties skate for another year with actually balancing the state's operating budget.
Schwarzenegger is enough of an egotist to claim major credit for the last two, and the star-struck political press will play along cheerfully, for the most part. Because these measures had broad bipartisan support, well-funded campaigns and virtually no active opposition, their winning is a success but certainly no political miracle.
When I criticize the press coverage on that point, I mean just that. I think the press' conventional wisdom on that point is a poor reading of the situation. But from the Democrats' partisan political perspective, it's actually not such a bad thing for the press to tout it as a big sign of Schwarzenegger's popularity.
Because he's going to have to fight some bruising partisan battles between now and 2006. And the press corps' picture of his public clout isn't reflected in the polls. So if that magic political charm turns out not to be so effective on issues that are actually contested, PunditWorld may well interpret that as a mysterious drop in his appeal.
The secretary of state's projection of voter turnout was 43%; lower turnouts tend to favor conservative ballot measures and candidates, although one-sentence generalizations like that are always tricky.
2 comments:
I also voted no on 57 and 58. I'm about ready to read your earlier posts on your reasons for opposing them...!
Obviously, we wound up in the minority on those two! Neither of them is particularly destructive in itself. But the win on those two, along with the loss of Prop 56, means we're just adding a little more to the chronic budget problems. I think California has reached a real point of crisis in its state politics. But it will take years to get any really constructive solutions in place. - Bruce
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