SBAC/M4 Strategies Poll: Whitman Leads by 17
Meg Whitman holds a 17.5% point lead over Steve Poizner in the newest Small Business Action Committee poll conducted by M4 Strategies of Costa Mesa.
The poll was conducted May 12, 13, and 16, targeting 600 high propensity Republican voters. The poll’s margin of error is 4%.
Whitman leads Poizner 49% to 31.5% with nearly 20% undecided or refusing to respond.
Pollsters asked respondents if they viewed the candidates as favorable or unfavorable. Whitman registered 54.5% Favorable, 26.8% Unfavorable. Poizner stood at 38.5% Favorable, 33.8% Unfavorable.
44.3% of the respondents labeled themselves “very conservative.”
2010 Election Preview – Potential November Targets
It’s much
too early to start picking winners and losers for next November. In many of the potential targeted races
for congress and the state legislature, we won’t know until after the June 8
Primary who the Party nominees will be.
So, let’s
first talk about what we do know.
In November
2008, Barack Obama outpolled John McCain in 8 of 19 congressional districts, 5
of 15 state senate seats, and 12 of 29 assembly seats that are currently held
by a Republican.
There is not
a single Democratic-held congressional or state legislative district up for
election this year that John McCain carried in 2008.
For
Republicans to pick up any seats in November, they must defeat a Democrat
running in a seat won by Obama.
If the
latest Rasmussen poll taken in mid-May is to be believed, Obama’s current
approval rating in California stands at 61% – the same percentage Obama carried
this state in 2008.
No new taxes – for now
No new taxes – at least none proposed by the Governor last Friday. Kudos to him and his team for recognizing the damaging effect that more taxes would have on the hoped-for economic recovery. Businesses and individuals are paying tens of billions in higher and more aggressively collected taxes enacted during the past two years.
But additional taxes remain on the table as the politicos and interest groups clear their throats. Legislative Democrats have lined up a parade of tax increases to keep pressure on budget negotiators. And even the Governor is counting indirectly on a tax increase for nearly nine hundred million dollars of his budget solution. The state receives a small portion of the federal inheritance tax, and unless Congress takes action to reduce or repeal it, the federal “death tax” will be reinstated come 2011.
Governor’s May Revise Must Start Serious Negotiations to Balance the Budget
Governor Schwarzenegger released his revised May budget proposal for the 2010-11 budget year on Friday. It puts forward some very difficult cuts that are sadly necessary to bring spending in line with revenue and balance the budget.
I believe the May Revise should be seen as the starting point for serious budget discussions in the coming weeks. With a $20 billion budget deficit, it’s clear that we must achieve the same level of budget savings that the Governor has proposed, even if we have different ideas. It is my hope that Democrats will start working with Republicans today to craft the bipartisan balanced budget Californians are seeking by June 15th.
Speaker Pérez is right to call for more openness and transparency in the annual budget process. We should not be relying on the “Big 5” to negotiate state budgets in the middle of the night.
By the same token, it’s time to get serious about what we’re actually doing in legislative budget committee hearings. In order to pass an on-time, responsible budget, it is essential that the majority party commits themselves to honest and open budget discussions with Republicans.
Jobs, Environmental Regulation, and Dead French Economists
Cross-posted at NewGeography.com.
The debate over the repeal of California’s global-warming regulation, AB32, has degenerated into a shouting match, each side claiming economic ruin if the other side wins. A couple of long-dead French economists can help us think about the debate.
The great French economist Leon Walras (1834-1910) showed that perfect markets result in an allocation of goods and services that can’t be improved on, in the sense that no one could be made better off without someone else being made worse off.
Of course, we don’t have completely unfettered markets. In fact, they have never existed. They will never exist. In particular, we economists like to talk about what we call negative externalities. These occur when I do something, but an unintended consequence is that it hurts you, and you have no recourse.