Down by 30 points in the polls? Check.

Being battered by a never-ending barrage of TV and radio ads? Check.

Having trouble raising money? Check.

If you listen to Steve Poizner, all that shows is that he’s got Meg Whitman right where he wants her.

The next four days are Poizner’s best – and possibly last – chance to turn things around if he’s going to make a serious run at victory in June’s GOP primary for governor.

It’s a window of opportunity that opens tonight with the start of the state Republican convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara and continues through his first face-to-face debate with Whitman Monday evening in Costa Mesa.

There are some good features in the Democratic reform proposals borrowed from California Forward and announced yesterday, but the focus on the package will be the effort to lower the two-thirds vote requirement to pass the budget. And in the California legislature, dealing with the two-thirds vote requirement faces the classic paradox of an irresistible force meets an immovable object.

The Democrats insist the road to better governance and accountability flows through a simple majority budget vote. Republicans say no way will they give up leverage in the budget negotiations and abandon their constituents by turning the budget dealings completely over to the majority Democrats.

One important piece in trying to resolve this deadlock is the issue of raising fees with a simple majority vote, as is now the law. Republicans are concerned that with majority vote power to pass the budget Democrats will simply turn to raising majority vote fees to balance the budget.

I have written extensively both here and elsewhere about our economic woes in this 21st Century Depression that has paralyzed the developed world since the end of 2007, the latest watching Europe caught in the throes of what I call the Grecian Formula, and I don’t mean that tube of goo that makes your hair less grey. I have seen in my law practice too many commercial real estate owners now struggling with portfolios that resemble the upside-down cruise ship in the 1972 action flick: The Poseidon Adventure.

I have watched our Congress in gridlock over healthcare while swooning from the attention of financial industry lobbyists, paid beyond handsomely, to stonewall any kind of financial regulation, which could prevent an even worse crisis, ending any further off-the-books gambling by the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street. I have watched our national unemployment hit 10% and now hover just below (9.7% again last Friday), while our California figures are significantly higher and those of the teens and twenty-year olds and some racial groups are, frighteningly, even higher. But, it didn’t truly hit home for me until the last couple of months, during which I have been recovering from a bit of surgery to greet the new year (hence my recent absence as a contributing ‘Hound’ for F&HD).

Guess what? Electronic signatures aren’t new to California politics. In most counties of this state, records of voter registration are kept in electronic form. So when the clerk’s office checks to see if your pen-and-paper signature on an initiative petition matches the signature they have on file, the signature they’re comparing it with is an electronic one.

I learned more about this through reading the fascinating court filings in the case of Ni v. Slocum, a new lawsuit that asks a superior court judge in San Mateo County to find that an electronic signature on the marijuana initiative – Michael Ni signed it electronically with the touch screen of his iPhone – is valid and should be counted. The county’s chief elections officer, Warren Slocum, ruled the signature invalid.

A scheme by legislative leaders to torpedo Prop 14, the open primary initiative on the June ballot was revealed this week in a Sacramento Superior Courtroom.

It’s no secret that political insiders are opposed to open primaries. They see the idea as a threat to their power and influence over what happens in the Capitol. That’s why it wasn’t surprising to see them ramp up their calculated attacks on the open primary as voters begin to become more aware of the idea.

What was surprising, however, was the blatant audacity of insiders who this week tried to engineer a last-minute, total rewrite of the title and summary of Proposition 14, one that included absurdly prejudicial language designed to deceive voters and kill the measure.

While many elected officials, members of the media, and members of the general public have expressed outrage over the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United, the real danger of that decision lurks beneath the surface. The decision, which allows corporations to use general treasury funds to make ads that support or oppose candidates for elected office, has been widely criticized as giving corporations a larger voice in elections. There can be little doubt that the Court’s decision will do just that.

However, the truly dangerous part of the decision is not its outcome; it is instead the way that the Court decided the case.

Citizens United is a conservative non-profit corporation which sought to air a movie on Video-On-Demand critical of then-Presidential Candidate Hilary Clinton during her primary election battle with now-President Barack Obama. When it brought its case to the Supreme Court, Citizens United brought forth a narrow challenge, claiming that a portion of Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as McCain-Feingold) was unconstitutional only as applied to it. Citizens United had abandoned its much broader claim which asked the Court to declare a provision of McCain-Feingold to be unconstitutional as applied to everyone.

Voters beware: A group of California Democratic lawmakers is attempting one of the most cynical power-grabs in recent memory. The goal is to overturn voter-approved Proposition 11 in order to give themselves the authority to redraw their own district boundaries and choose the voters they want to represent.

Two years ago, California voters ended this inherent conflict of interest by passing Proposition 11. The initiative established an independent citizens commission to draw new legislative districts following the 2010 census. The new process is transparent and will reflect the state’s political and ethnic diversity. That’s why good government organizations such as California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and AARP joined the Chamber in championing this initiative. It’s also why political leaders spent millions of dollars opposing the initiative.

When it comes to redistricting, $2.7 million may trump $280,000.

The $2.7 million is what Charles Munger, a Palo Alto Republican, has anted up to qualify a “Son of Prop. 11” redistricting measure for the November ballot.

The initiative is simple enough. It allows the Citizens Redistricting Commission created by the 2008 initiative to also draw the lines for California’s congressional districts after this year’s census.

The $280,000, on the other hand, is what Democratic politicians and their allies have put aside for a November initiative that would kill Prop. 11 entirely, putting redistricting back in the hands of the Democrat-run Legislature.

Most of that money comes from California Democrats who are either in Congress or who want to be in Congress – that would be Karen Bass, who has given $50,000 to the initiative. But under Prop. 11, only legislative districts will be redrawn by the committee. Munger’s measure, though, would take redistricting out of the comforting hands of the Legislature and give it to a multi-partisan commission that won’t care nearly so much about putting more California Democrats in Congress.

The findings announced yesterday by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor on AB 32’s impact on unemployment in California confirmed what many of us have known for a long time – the regulations imposed by AB 32 will cause California to lose more jobs. With California facing its worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, we don’t have the luxury of a wait-and-see approach to AB 32, the greenhouse gas law that will smother job creation, raise costs for consumers, and destroy businesses across our state. It’s time for decisive action to correct AB 32, a law that will only make it harder for California families to make ends meet.

That’s why I support the California Jobs Initiative. This initiative, which is currently seeking signatures to qualify for the ballot, will stop all rulemaking and regulation under AB 32 until California’s unemployment rate declines to the level it was when AB 32 was adopted. I am proud to be the only candidate for governor that has endorsed this initiative and called for AB 32 to be completely halted until our economy is back on track and Californians are back to work.