Could they all go down together?
The Field Poll has recently conducted surveys on 5 of the 11 initiatives — plus one bond measure — scheduled to appear on California’s November ballot. The numbers are all over the place, but there’s reason to believe that all six measures polled could be headed to defeat in November.
How’s that?
Well, the lack of initial support for a ballot initiative is almost always an indication that it won’t pass. Such measures are hard to sell even when they, at first blush, have appeal. To start out with less than 50 percent support and win requires a Herculean effort (and usually, very weak or non-existent opposition). On that basis alone, we can count out Prop 11, the redistricting measure, which shows only 42 percent in the poll, and Prop 4, parental notification, which has 48 percent.
The same is also probably true of Prop 8, the ban on same-sex marriage, which also has only 42 percent in a recent Field Poll. One caution: the politics of gay marriage, which are really the politics of marriage, are complicated and relatively new, and other polling has shown this to be a tighter race than that. This is likely to be a 51-49 kind of campaign.
Jump into the Pool – the Small Business Insurance Pool
This morning’s column by the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Weintraub tells the impressive story of small businesses creating the heart and soul of the new California economy. The spirit of entrepreneurship and the desire to be your own boss is leading many workers to set up their own shops.
As Weintraub points out in the article, “firms of five employees or fewer now represent nearly 90 percent of all businesses in California” and these firms are growing at a rapid pace. Indeed even the smallest of firms, sole proprietorships increased by 24 percent from 2000 to 2005 to more than 2.5 million.
But along with this success story comes the question of how so many workers in small businesses deal with exploding health care costs? According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only 47% of firms with three to nine employees offer health care insurance. Sole proprietors often skip health care as an expense they cannot handle.
Dewey defeats Truman!
Any time a family member was pregnant, my mother-in-law would pick
two large family events and make two separate and competing
announcements: one, the baby will be a girl and two, the baby will be
a boy. On the day of the birth she would proudly remind us all of
how she had accurately predicted the baby’s gender and even remind us
of the event where she made the proclamation. My mother-in-law
missed her calling and while she could not have cared less about
politics, she should have been a political expert.
Last summer there were two certainties in presidential politics.
One, Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee for president.
She could not be beat. She had the name, the husband, the money, the
connections, the organization, the staff and the support of the
party. The other summer of ’07 certainty was that John McCain’s
candidacy was dead in the water. He was too old, too moderate, too
independent (or not independent enough), his staff was in disarray,
and he didn’t have enough money to run an effective campaign. As a
matter of fact, if you missed those McCain news stories last year,
not a problem. The exact same stories are being run today.