In looking at the disparate results of the June 2010 election, there are two themes that stand out to me:

1. Republicans will do what they are told by their corporate masters. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina won their primaries because they spent an enormous amount of money to tell Republicans that they should vote for CEOs because they're smarter than everyone else and more likely to beat the Democrat this fall. That's it.

Joe Mathews has a good take on Whitman's victory, but it really does come down to her money. Same for Fiorina. Both dominated the messaging and TV airwaves with their ads, and did so early and often.

But it's not only the money - it's who they are. The Republican Party is the party of big corporations, with a voter base that believes big business can do no wrong. Look at the maps: Props 16 and 17 did very well in the Republican-friendly counties of Southern California. Prop 16 went down in the Central Valley partly because of voter anger at PG&E over the smart meters, but in SoCal where PG&E is unknown, Republicans said "sure, let's give corporations whatever they ask."

2. Corporations can be beaten. For the rest of California, however, unlimited corporate power is not seen as a positive thing. Letting them dominate and distort our elections with their money is rightly seen as a huge problem, whereas to Republicans it's business as usual.

The defeat of both Propositions 16 and 17 is a *major* victory for progressives whose importance cannot possibly be underestimated. PG&E spent $40 million to pass it. The opposition? They spent $100,000. But with groups like the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director) pitching in to help educate and organize voters, we were able to mobilize progressive activists to get the word out about this bad proposition, turn out to the polls, and make sure Prop 16 went down. Prop 17's story was very similar, with opponents being outspent 10 to 1.

We weren't able to beat Prop 14 or pass Prop 15. The voters really do want major political change, and don't yet understand the benefits of public funding. But Prop 15 did much better than Prop 89, which suggests victory for clean money is near.

As we go into the fall campaign season, the arc of this election is now clear: it is a battle between corporate wealth and populist democracy. Our victory in Prop 16 and Prop 17 show how we can win that battle. Time to build and organize to win again in November.

There is a very clear theme to today's election: will corporations take over California's politics, or will the voters stand up in defense of their democracy?

This theme appears again and again and again in races across the state, from the governor's race on down to the ballot propositions and state legislative races. Corporations and the CEOs that used to run them are convinced that their money will be enough to sway voters to give those corporations and CEOs much more power over our wallets and our elections. A massively underfunded, but broadly-based progressive coalition is fighting back, and in some of the key races, the outcome is far from clear.

We can see the stark contrast emerging in both the Senate and governor's races. Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, the likely Republican nominees for Senate and governor, are both former CEOs of large Silicon Valley corporations. Both are extreme right-wingers who believe that government's job is to help corporations dominate our economy by crowding out new innovations and competition, avoid their tax burdens, and undermine our regulatory protections.

But that battle won't be decided until November. Today, there are some key battles over corporate power that *will* be decided, primarily regarding the statewide ballot propositions.

Proposition 15 must pass. As I wrote earlier this spring, it allows for the expansion of clean money in California, repealing a ban on public financing and setting up a test case for the Secretary of State race in 2014.

Corporate capture of government through unlimited donations is largely responsible for the economic and political problems we face. The only way to get out of that is to restore financial power over politicians to the people. We already pay their salaries. Why not have the state pay for their campaigns - especially when in this case, the money actually comes from lobbyists and not taxpayers?

California's political and economic crisis will not end until we have kicked corporate money out of our elections. Prop 15 is the necessary first step toward that broader recovery and reform.

Prop 15 is also a clear reaction against Propositions 16 and 17. Put on the ballot and funded by PG&E and Mercury Insurance, respectively, these propositions make use of outright deception in order to undermine our democracy (in the case of Prop 16, requiring a 2/3 vote for the public to create their own power systems) or undermine our consumer protection laws (in the case of Prop 17, enabling auto insurers to get around Prop 103 and charge customers much higher premiums for a lapse in coverage). If these pass, then many other corporations will take note, and start funding their own propositions to undermine our democracy and our laws so they can make more money at our expense.

But that's not all. Prop 14 would change the way our primary elections work, sending the top two candidates on to the general election ballot in the fall regardless of party. Not only would this shut out smaller parties, it would in many places extend a party primary into the general election - mostly Democratic races. In these "November primaries" there will likely be a progressive candidate and a corporate-funded candidate, and the thinking goes that the corporate-funded Democrat will get Republican votes and defeat the progressive, shifting the Democratic Party to the right and making it more subservient to corporate power.

You can read more about those propositions at the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action voter guide, which you can also receive on your mobile phone by texting VOTECA to 30644.

Over at Calitics David Dayen wrote about the letter Karen Bass and Darrell Steinberg sent to CDP delegates asking them to endorse Props 1A-1F at next weekend's convention. I found it striking that they felt the need to contact delegates about this, and it clearly suggests they've seen the grassroots rebellion within the party against the May 19 propositions.

As a CDP delegate myself I expect to be in the thick of the endorsement battle in Sacramento, and as a member of the Calitics Editorial Board I plan to support our "no on everything" endorsement at the convention.

That being said, I don't agree with the increasingly negative attacks being levied at Speaker Bass and Senator Steinberg in the comments to David's post. They are both good progressives who have been backed into a corner by the severity of the economic crisis and the Zombie Death Cult's desire to see this state go over the cliff. I don't agree with how they handled that tough spot but I have no doubt they believe they've made the choices that were necessary for the welfare of everyone in this state.

In my capacity as Public Policy Director for the Courage Campaign I've had the chance to talk with Speaker Bass at some length about the May 19 propositions and she is passionate about the need to bring some revenue to the budget to stave off worse cuts. Again, I disagree with the way she's looking at this - these propositions are going to worsen the long-term budget mess, ensuring that ugly cuts will be made, whether it's in 2009 or 2013 or 2015 - but her position is understandable.

And yet she is not winning the argument. Democratic clubs across the state are either rejecting the package outright or are endorsing one or two of the initiatives with great reluctance and only after a considerable lobbying effort. There is no enthusiasm at all for these proposals among most Democrats and progressives, even those who endorse them.

This is due to several factors: the inherent problems with the proposals, the lack of trust and faith in Democratic leaders, the lack of a long-term strategy, and terrible framing. All of these are related. As David Dayen has repeatedly demonstrated, the chief selling point of the initiatives by Democratic electeds is fear. Fear that unless we hold our noses and approve these inherently conservative proposals (Prop 1B being the only one that might not be fundamentally right-wing in nature) Californians will suffer, that schools and health care and local governments will be made to pay the price of balancing the budget.

What that demonstrates is the deeper problem - there is no May 20 strategy coming from the Sacramento Democrats. They aren't offering any kind of plan for what happens the day after the election. And they need to, because win or lose, the state will still face a multibillion deficit on May 20.

Of particular concern is the fact that few if any Democratic legislators seem to be planning to fight the concept of budget cuts or to fight for wealth taxes. In the conversations I've had with Assemblymembers and Senators and their staffers on the May 19 election, they almost all argue that horrifying cuts are an inevitability if the May 19 props fail. They don't seem interested in, or confident in their ability to, mobilize the people of California against Republican efforts to destroy our government, to mobilize voters for saving schools, hospitals, buses, and jobs.

It might have been possible to mobilize some of the Democrats and progressives who oppose the May 19 props to support them, despite the fact they represent bad public policy - if they had any confidence that there was a clear May 20 strategy. That strategy would have to show how the Dems will resist Republican demands for cuts, to move the ball forward on the 2/3 rule and wealth taxes, and to provide economic growth.

But there has been no such strategy offered, not now, and really not at any time since 1978. These ballot propositions are sadly typical of the product of the Democratic legislature over the last 30 years - a slightly less wingnutty set of proposals that Democrats feel obligated to support, and that they insist we become a party to by ratification at the ballot box. If the grassroots had any confidence that the Democratic legislature had a clear and compelling plan to fight for progressive budget solutions, more of them might be willing to reluctantly back the initiatives as a necessary evil. (To be clear, I do not count myself among this number, and I cannot imagine a scenario where I would support 1A or 1C-1F.)

What is happening is that Democratic and progressive grassroots activists, joined by a number of prominent progressive organizations (from labor unions like CNA to good government organizations like the League of Women Voters), are rejecting the entire way of thinking that went into the May 19 proposals.

The current crisis is the product of too much short-term conservative-lite solutions. No matter what happens on May 19, we will be confronted with the same basic crisis on May 20. It is long past time for us to articulate progressive proposals, educate the public on their value and the problems with conservative "solutions," and organize voters to enact them.

*That* is what the opponents of the May 19 initiatives are saying. Perhaps we will have to produce a May 20 strategy ourselves.

Resolutions for California Democrats

The Northern Solano Democratic Club has posted five resolutions on their web site that will be submitted for approval at the state convention next month.

They are:

A Resolution for Improving Higher Education Accreditation Practices
A Resolution for Relief from No Child Left Behind Expenditures
A Resolution Opposing the Open Primary in 2010
A Resolution for majority Rule Initiative Reducing the Threshold for Passing a State Budget
A Resolution on Contesting Elections

The full text of each is below the fold and can be adopted by local clubs by inserting your club name in the "Resolved" clauses at the appropriate place.   Read More »

The latest Field Poll is out (only link is at SF Chronicle) and it shows the favorability ratings of various leading contenders for 2010 gubernatorial race in both parties. And while the Chronicle wants to make this an "omg DiFi is the favorite" and "ha ha - Newsom sucks" story, the two most important things the poll actually tells us are:

1. DiFi has very high unfavorability ratings among Democratic contenders, and

2. Nobody - and I mean nobody - knows a thing about the Yacht Party potentials, except that they don't like them.

Among Dems only Gavin Newsom has higher unfavorables, but not by much, and since this poll was taken right before the election - when Newsom was getting pounded in the press and on the airwaves by the Yes on 8 campaign - this may be a low point for Newsom.

That makes the 39% unfavorable figure for Feinstein rather significant. Sure, she has the highest favorable rating - 50% - of anyone in the field regardless of party, but that's not a great figure for such an established politician. As we've noted before, her numbers among Dems aren't so hot either. I don't see much basis for a DiFi inevitability argument, which the Chronicle is trying to get started.

Jerry Brown has a lot of room to grow, since much of that 32% "no opinion" are probably younger Californians who (like me) were born late in or after his previous terms as governor.

Antonio Villaraigosa has to be considered a sleeper here. At 39% "no opinion" that gives him room to grow as well. He has been building a solidly progressive reputation over the last year, coming out strong against Prop 8 and leading the fight for mass transit in LA (seriously, getting to 2/3 with a sales tax for rail in LA County is a major achievement). As Brian noted a few weeks ago, his endorsements were the closest match to our own. He is also making a high profile link with Barack Obama, serving on his economic advisory team. If you want to run for governor, it is a damn smart move to link yourself to a popular president who won CA by 24 points.

And what of the Yacht Party contenders? They have Bill Simon written all over them.

Even with enormous unknown ratings, none of them have a net favorability rating outside the margin of error, and Steve Poizner already has a significant unfavorability rating that will only grow once his links to voter registration fraud get a wider airing. The Chronicle article promotes Meg Whitman as a breakout star, but I'm not seeing it here. All California voters will need to hear is that she's a Republican and that she was an advisor to the McCain campaign and that may be enough to torpedo her.

The only Republican who might have a snowball's chance is Tom Campbell, the moderate Republican, but he didn't fare well in a statewide race in 2000 (losing to DiFi). Of course it's *highly* unlikely that the "down with the ship" Yacht Party primary voters will vote for a moderate like Campbell.

This goes to show that the 2010 governor's race may well be decided in the June primary, which should be one of the most interesting primary fights we've seen in this state in a long, long, LONG time.

The dominant theme of the 2008 campaign - from the presidential race on down - has been lies. Republicans and conservatives have resorted to an unprecedented amount of outright lies to try and defeat progressive campaigns and policies. There has been a marked uptick lately in the amount of false advertising especially on the propositions, so I thought I'd collect some of them here.

• Prop 1A: The Reason Foundation, swimming in oil money, has been flooding the state's newspapers with misleading claims against high speed rail. The worst example was in a recent issue of the LA Times when Adrian Moore of the Reason Foundation made totally false claims, including that global HSR lines are subsidized (all turn a profit and France's TGV subsidizes other rail lines) and that HSR doesn't take passengers from airlines (in fact, they all do - to the point that Air France is going to enter the HSR market itself). More on these lies at the California High Speed Rail Blog.



• Prop 4: Planned Parenthood is facing a malicious attack from Prop 4 proponents. From an email sent out to the No on 4 list yesterday:
  
  

  A new ad from the proponents of Proposition 4 twists a tragic case of a teen trapped in an incestuous situation, and falsely claims that Prop 4 would have helped. What is most outrageous is that Prop 4 would have put that teen in an even worse and more desperate situation. It would not have helped this teen in any way yet the anti-choice extremists behind Prop 4 continue to use tragic events to lie to California voters.

  
  
  Visit No on Prop 4 to donate and find volunteer opportunities to help defeat this attack on teen safety and abortion rights.



• Prop 8: Brian explained yesterday the most recent falsehood being peddled by the Yes on 8 folks. Even though Mormon legal expert Morris Thurston exposed these claims as lies and demanded the church stop spreading them, the Mormon Church is still helping pay for these ads. Visit the No on 8 campaign to volunteer your time or your money to defeat these liars and protect marriage rights.

Why all the lies? Partly because if we had a discussion on the actual merits of the issues, Prop 1A would pass and Props 4 and 8 would fail by large margins. The media plays a role here as well, letting groups like the Reason Foundation or the Mormon Church spread false claims without pushing back for the truth. Stenography has replaced journalism, as media outlets just report what "both sides" have to say regardless of whether or not there's any truth to the claims. And the op-ed pages and TV ads exist in a zone of truthiness, where nobody holds the liars accountable.

Except us. California progressives, the blogs, the grassroots. All the more reason for us to Stay For Change and save California from the liars on the right who wish to set this state back decades instead of help us embrace a better future.

Building A New Energy, Economic, Environmental, Educational Future For Our Country and Our Planet

Democratic candidate for California's 24th Congressional District, Marta Jorgensen has formulated a bold new campaign platform called E-Revolution. She believes this platform, so named for its focus on the strong and productive reform of federal energy, economic, environmental, and educational policies as well as on citizen engagement, is necessary for the United States to compete and survive in the new millennium.

The first pillar of E-Revolution is energy reform. As our older energy sources continue to pollute our environment, make us dependent on foreign governments, and slowly get used up, we must adopt clean, independent, and renewable forms of alternative energy like solar power, wind power, tidal power, geothermal power, and biofuels.

Countries like Denmark, which already gets 25% of its energy from wind power, and Germany, which expects to get 45% of its power from renewable energy sources by 2030, have already recognized the dangers of an addiction to oil and coal. But Marta Jorgensen believes that the United States can meet this challenge head on; we can take back the mantle of energy pioneer we once held by supporting these new technologies with tax breaks and federal mandates.

The second pillar of this platform, economic reform, seeks to return the American economy to the robust strength it once had and to create new Green and higher paying jobs for American workers. This can be done by steering our economy toward alternative energy sources, by making our economy more efficient, by working to overcome global warming, and by creating more favorable trade agreements.

While the American oil and coal industries are losing jobs, renewable alternative energies can create and support millions of new jobs. According to studies, wind power can account for nearly 350,000 jobs, solar power for over 260,000 jobs and $45 billion in economic investment, tidal power for thousands of jobs per plant, geothermal energy for over 20,000 jobs; and biofuel for over 200,000 jobs. California is the natural home for many of these industries, and with them our state's economy, already one of the largest in the world, will surely grow even larger.

We can also make our economy more efficient. For example, one study found that an increase in fuel efficiency standards starting in 2001 could have saved drivers in upstate New York more than $2.4 billion in gas by 2012; the savings for California, with its much bigger economy and many more residents, could have been astronomical. Calling for stricter fuel efficiency standards and supporting the creation of new cars with alternative forms of power like electricity, hydrogen, or fuel cells can make our economy more efficient and each of us better off.

Switching to alternative energies and making our economy more efficient as well as working to reduce pollution and instituting a carbon tax will have the additional and very important effect of helping to ward off the effects of climate change. The costs of untreated global warming is an increase in wildfires, water conservation, public health, agriculture, and flooding could be incalculable; if we take steps now to mitigate those effects, we will be able to sustain and grow our economy far into the future.

In addition, we can take steps to keep our thriving international trade alive and growing while fixing bad trade agreements so that our only exports are American products, not American jobs. We can also address the issue of our crumbling dollar by reducing the federal deficit and paying down the federal debt. These policies form an important part of Marta Jorgensen's platform.

Such sweeping economic reform may sound difficult, but it is nowhere near as hard as keeping our economy beholden to the old energy sources, old technologies, and bad trade agreements that have made our economy so weak. But America is no weakling, and Marta Jorgensen believes that we are strong enough and motivated enough to do what we must to secure success for our economy.

The third pillar of change in E-Revolution, environmental reform, is closely related to Jorgensen's call for both energy and economic reform. We face serious peril from the effects of global warming, including a catastrophic rise in sea level, widespread drought, and myriad extinctions in plant and animal species all over the planet, effects that will change our world for the worse. But Marta Jorgensen thinks we can change the world for the better; Marta Jorgensen has a plan.

First, she calls for freezing carbon emissions and instituting a carbon tax, which will go a long way to reduce any further impact we might have on the atmosphere. But we also need to further reduce our creation of greenhouse gases by instituting a moratorium on coal plants not outfitted with carbon capture features, calling for the replacement of inefficient incandescent light bulbs, and building a more efficient electrical grid. In concert, these changes will drastically reduce our negative impact on the environment.

Of course, while we in the United States bear well more than our fair share of responsibility for global warming, we cannot address this problem alone. That is why Marta Jorgensen will call for a new and stronger global treaty, more effective than the Kyoto Protocol and with a closer compliance date, and she will do all she can to make sure that this time, we sign on and we stay on.

The final pillar of E-Revolution, educational reform, centers on the need to teach our children how to succeed in an E-Revolution world. We need programs to teach them how to work on a wind farm, how to design a better solar panel, and how to build a more efficient energy grid. We need to make sure that they know how important our environment is what they can do as individuals to make sure we maintain it. In short, we need comprehensive environmental education, and we need to do it on the national level.

The four pillars of E-Revolution are closely related; if one of them fails, the success of the whole project would be cast into doubt. Without energy reform to create new jobs in alternative energies and to make the economy more efficient, true economic reform is impossible, and without a switch to cleaner energy sources, true environmental reform is impossible. Without economic reform to create and maintain alternative energies, true energy reform is impossible, and without a more sustainable economy, true environmental reform is impossible. Without environmental reform to wean us off our addiction to fossil fuels, true energy reform is impossible, and without an environmental policy that seeks to overcome the problems of global warming, true economic reform is impossible. And unless we have educational reform to teach our children how to thrive in this new world, all the gains of the rest of the project will be for naught.

We need to make E-Revolution a reality; we need to elect Marta Jorgensen.Please support Marta Jorgensen's campaign to unseat Republican Elton Gallegly in California's 24th Congressional District.

Visit her website at: www.jorgensenforcongress.com.
805-742-0163 headquarters - jorgensenforcongress08@gmail.com

(cross-posted on Calitics)

Here is the short story, if you are just coming to it right now. Chron:

The Los Angeles system requires that decline-to-state voters not only ask specifically for a Democratic ballot - but also fill in a special bubble on the ballot specifically indicating their desire to vote on the Democratic presidential ticket. Failure to fill in the bubble voids their presidential ballot.

The Courage Campaign has contacted Los Angeles County election officials "demanding that they count the votes and that they inform voters of this 'bubble trouble,"' said Jacobs. "They finally agreed they didn't know how to count the votes."

Our lawyer Steve Reyes caught this over the weekend. This problem has existed for several cycles and was caught late. The Obama campaign held a conference call with reporters about this earlier today and one of our lawyers Steve Kauffman was on it. They are very much concerned, as we are that voter intent will not be determined. The law is pretty clear on this.

The Clinton Campaign on the other hand...

But Averell "Ace" Smith, campaign manager for California campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said he is mystified by the Election Day complaints from the Obama team, since the rules for decline to state voters - specifically the requirement that request Democratic ballots - have been a matter of public record posted on the California Secretary of State's web site for months.

"Every California campaign has known the ground rules on this for three months," he said. "I can't imagine why they waited until 2 pm. on Election Day to wake up ... it strikes me as strange. If you wait until the last minute to complain, they must really be worried we're going to win."

"We've certainly worked with our voters for months and months" to educate them on the process, he said. "They're blaming other people for not having done their homework...this is nothing more than a cynical attempt to create confusion."

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