It takes some time to process the election results. Here, to accompany my post on the five election winners, are five election losers.
1. Whoever that Republican guy who was running for governor. Bald. Seemed smart. I can’t quite remember his name. I guess most Californians had the same problem.
2. Consumer Watchdog. The jig is up. They lost bad with two initiatives on health finance topics: 45 and 46. Prop 45 in particular should be studied as how not to run an initiative campaign. They missed an opportunity by failing to qualify the measure in 2011 for the 2012 ballot. They alienated Covered California in part by not approaching them before pursuing the initiative. They included intervenor fee provisions to enrich themselves. They attacked people instead of building a coalition of support. And after the campaign, they blamed everyone but themselves.
3. People professionally obligated to understand the budget. It was already too complicated. Now Prop 2, and its complicated formula that involves capital gains tax, has been added to the mix.
4. Taxpayer groups. At the local level, tax and borrowing measures won big. If taxers don’t get greedy in how they write measures, they could win big on the statewide ballot in 2016.
5. Jerry Brown. Yes, he won big and earned a historic fourth term. But now he has to spend the next four years doing the toughest job in American politics.