My company, Activate Direct, teamed up with Tulchin Research and PWSMC Social Media consulting, to release a detailed study of social media content related to the 2010 California governor’s race between candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. The study demonstrates how campaigns can use techniques of "social listening" as both a real-time poll and an ongoing focus group, augmenting traditional public opinion research methods and identifying potential crises early.

Study Highlights
The analysis unlocked several key findings:

• Social and polling data were closely correlated.
• The ratio of positive to negative social sentiment was very much in line with the ratio of favorable to unfavorable ratings shown by traditional polling.
• Social chatter was driven by key campaign events.

While the legislature is in session, the National
Federation of Independent Business/California will be profiling anti-small
business bills and the adverse effect they would have on California’s job
creators.  This is the fourth column of
the 2011 series.

Sometimes it seems like the Capitol is a lot like the movie
"Groundhog Day".  The same bills keep
coming back year after year, like a nightmare from which you can’t awaken.  This year is no different for small business
owners, as the threat of card check – the undemocratic formation of unions in
the workplace through bullying and intimidation – comes back to haunt them once
again in the form of Senate Bill 104 by Senate President Pro-tem Darrell
Steinberg.

Let’s point out the facts
surrounding the card check legislation in California.  If signed into law,
it will diminish worker freedom.  Currently a secret ballot election is
required for workers to decide to unionize. Under the card check plan, a worker
could be approached by a union representative and asked to sign a card in
support of unionization.  The union rep now speaks for the worker.  How easy is it for a worker to turn down a
supervisor or union rep? 

I wish the title were an exaggeration, but sadly, it is not. On May 3rd, CEO Magazine came out with its annual survey of 550 business leaders asking about the best and worst states for doing business. The survey looked at a wide range of issues that included taxation, regulation, workforce quality and living environment. California came in dead last. The bottom five also included Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois and New York. What is interesting is that these are powerhouse states, with large populations and large employment bases. With all due respect, we are not talking about West Virginia or New Mexico (though they did not rank that high, either).

I spoke to the writer for the survey, J.P. Conlon, and asked whether they focused on litigation climate as one of the issues. He told me they did not, but that you could interpret areas like regulation and workforce quality and living environment as areas affected by litigation.

Treasurer Bill Lockyer caused waves last month when he suggested that given Republican lawmakers’ opposition to higher taxes, their districts should bear the brunt of spending cuts. He said, “The people who want less government ought to be at the front of that line to get less government.”

Senate Democrat Leader Darrell Steinberg expressed openness to the idea, saying, “You don’t want to pay for government, well then, you get less of it.” He added that any district-targeted cuts should not hurt “kids or the vulnerable” but instead be limited to “convenience services that affect adults.”

Outrage to the proposal—appropriately so—came fast and furious.

Senate Vice-Chair Bob Huff said the proposal was “just nuts.”

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation compared the idea to the strong arm tactics of an organized crime protection racket. He also suggested it might violate the equal protection guarantees found in both our state and federal constitutions.

Even the Los Angeles Times called the plan “ham-fisted and wrong.”

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is seriously testing that
old Hollywood adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

But while you wouldn’t know it from the nationwide flood of
overheated Page 1 stories, "I told you so" columns and tsk-tsking editorials,
the most ignored word in the whole scandal coverage is the one that opens this
piece: "Former."

Since January, Jerry Brown has been California’s governor
and Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a one-time politician and current
out-of-work actor.

While that distinction doesn’t matter to the supermarket
tabloids, TMZ.com’s and People magazines of the world, it should make a
difference to the much-maligned mainstream media, which prides itself on taking
a serious approach to the important issues facing the country and the world.

Unless, of course, there’s a sex scandal with a headline
name involved.

Los Angeles County election officials say we won’t know
until at least Friday who will be in the runoff for the 36^th
Congressional District seat. This race could prove the first test of
Proposition 14 and not merely in the sense of having two members of the same
party facing each other in the general election.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Janice Hahn, a Democrat, is
safely the frontrunner with 13,137 votes. Republican businessman Craig Huey is
second with 11,648 votes. Democrat Debra Bowen, California’s Secretary of
State, ranks third just 206 votes behind Huey. There are 9,811 ballots yet to
count, some mail-in ballots, provisional ballots or damaged ballots.

Proposition 14 calls for the top two vote getters to face
off in the general election, which is July 12. Should Bowen surpass Huey in the
final count then Proposition 14 would be in full effect – two Democrats facing
each other because they captured the top two spots in the primary.

Yesterday, Gov. Jerry Brown released his revised state budget that proposes the elimination of 43 various departments, commissions and task forces in an effort to help close California’s budget deficit. Much of that streamlining will improve efficiency and save taxpayer dollars. However, there is one new department that state lawmakers should actually create in this climate — a new Agency for Economic Development, Job Creation and Competitiveness.

At a time when schools and other public service providers are coping with major funding cuts and next year’s budget remains uncertain, yet another threat looms on the horizon — this one courtesy of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). The agency is proceeding with a rule-making that would cost school districts, cities, counties and small businesses hundreds of millions of dollars without first conducting a thorough analysis of its water quality benefits, its costs and whether there are less costly alternative strategies.

We need to continue improving water quality in California, but we need to proceed intelligently to ensure that regulations provide measurable environmental benefits and that we clearly understand their costs before approving them, and carefully consider any additional costs imposed during this difficult economic time.

That’s why the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH) — representing 500 school districts serving 92% of California’s school children — has joined with the WATER Coalition (Workable Approach to Environmental Regulation) in opposition to SWRCB’s newest proposal to regulate storm water runoff.

Governor Jerry Brown put up a new budget plan that contained an eye-opening $6.6 billion in new revenues, a reduction in his previous income tax proposal, boosts to job creation, and an argument that California still needed a five-year tax extension to whittle down a “wall of debt.” Brown moved in the right direction but he should have gone further.

The governor should have embraced the unanticipated revenue as a hopeful sign and offered not only the pro-business measures he did, but also other provisions to spur the economy.

With the economy delivering new revenues, the five-year tax plan is hard to justify. The governor might have shortened the time he was asking for all the taxes contained within his proposal. He could even have suggested a trigger mechanism to capture new revenues only if the economic growth and tax revenue surge flattened instead of seeking the five-year extension.

He offered no such creative approaches but chose to hold tight to the five-year tax increase plan minus the one-year he removed from the income tax.