The past few days have seen another spate of “OMG, Republican incumbents are in trouble!” stories in the traditional media.  Aside from them not understanding and internalizing the theory of coattails, this problem is particularly acute among the California media, where gerrymandering is just supposed to lock up Congressional and legislative seats airtight, except when, you know, it doesn’t.  Peculiar to this rendering of the world is the idea that nobody ever moves, dies, or reaches the age of 18 in any particular district, and thus voter registration statistics are completely static.  But of course this is not true, and once the Democratic Party started putting resources into registering new and lapsed voters, why look what happened:

One of the major reasons for these competitive contests has been the narrowing gap in registered voters between the parties. While Republicans still enjoy a substantial advantage over Democrats in all three districts, their leads have shrunk significantly.

Four years ago, Republicans led Democrats among registered voters by margins of 17 percent in the Orange County-based 46th, 15 percent in the San Diego-area 50th and 11 percent in the Riverside County-based 45th. By this year’s registration deadline of Oct. 20, those leads had shrunk by 6 percent in the 50th, 5 percent in the 46th and 6 percent in the 45th.

There are still the conventional wisdom-besotted punditocracy that simply can’t conceive of these major shifts in the electorate (it’s not like anything has happened the past eight years that would lead people to desert the Republican Party in droves, right?), who believe that incumbents just win and that’s the end of it.  But just ask one of those incumbents what he fears on Tuesday:

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach/Long Beach said Friday he’s concerned that Republicans will be discouraged by a possible Democratic landslide at the polls, affecting his re-election bid.

“If (Republican nominee John) McCain does not do well, and Republicans stay home, my lead could evaporate,” the nine-term incumbent of the 46th Congressional District said.

Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, the Democratic challenger, said the race is a “statistical dead heat,” and agreed that a solid turnout for change – from the economic problems facing the country – could be the difference in Tuesday’s hotly contested race.

“All the uncertainty that’s going on now is helping,” she said, adding that incumbents who have been “part of the system for the past 20 years” could be vulnerable.

This is all the more reason why Democrats and progressives need to remember Jim Corman and get as many voters to the polls as possible.  And Don’t Stop At The Top, of course.

And if the scenario is bright in the Congressional races, the Assembly looks even brighter.  Why, even Dan Walters has figured this one out.

Voters may not realize that they could dramatically alter that balance, but interest groups that are pouring millions of dollars into legislative and ballot measure campaigns certainly get it.

Democrats could pick up one seat in the Senate and are so certain of gaining three to five seats in the Assembly that they’ve diverted resources into several marginal districts, taking advantage of Obamania-inspired voter registration gains, to shoot for the six added seats that would give them a two-thirds majority. That margin is required for the budget and tax increases and could happen as the Capitol wrestles with a rapidly deteriorating economy and a fast-growing budget deficit.

We know about those top-line seats: AD-80, AD-78, AD-15, AD-10, AD-26.  But it’s Linda Jones’ race in AD-36 that has captured my attention.  She represents the ultimate swing vote as the potential 54th Democrat in the State Assembly, the vote that would give us a 2/3 majority, which in California is a governing majority.  And Linda Jones happens to be really great, campaiging on a message of green jobs in the waning days of the race.

As part of her campaign to create a stronger economy for the region, Democratic Assembly Candidate Linda Jones (36th District) today announced her “High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative” – using ‘green jobs’ to increase opportunities for unemployed and underemployed adults in the High Desert communities. Lt. Governor John Garamendi, a longtime advocate for environmental protection and renewable energy, offered his full support of the plan, calling it a “giant leap forward” for the region’s economy.

“Investing in the ‘green economy’ is a win-win because it will create jobs and increase our clean energy efficiency,” said Linda Jones. “The High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative will create outreach, educational, and training programs to recruit, develop, and sustain a green industry that will create jobs, increase our clean energy efficiency, and grow our economy for the region.”

There’s a website, High Desert Green Jobs, that details the initiative.  It’s fantastic that someone in a swing district trying to become the first Democratic member of the Assembly from this region in 34 years is offering such a bold agenda.

This district had an eight-point GOP lean just two years ago.  Now the registration gap is GONE.  400 votes separate Democrats and Republicans.  Don’t give me that redistricting stuff, nothing’s stopping this progressive wave.  I’m excited for Linda Jones and so is her community.

There’s just one day to go.  You need to Stay for Change because you can have a major impact right here in California.  I’m going to give predictions on everything in the morning.  But right now, I’m psyched.

If he were still at the Hotline this would be more specific, but unlike so many of the California punditocracy, he knows what a wave election means.

California: As unpopular as Bush supposedly has been in California, he only lost the state by 11 points in both 2000 and 2004. So what happens with McCain in ’08? I think Obama’s margin in this state will tell us a lot about Democratic enthusiasm among the base. Anything above 15 points for Obama probably means he will have some coattails down the ballot. And frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some two to four GOP incumbents go down, shocking  folks in Washington (Reps. Mary Bono-Mack? David Dreier?) No one is safe in this Blue state.

As we know, the latest Field Poll had Obama up by 22.  And that big a spread is going to cause some disruption.

I hear that Dana Rohrabacher dropped a last-minute mailer to Republicans, imploring them to turn out.  The latest registration numbers show that Dan Lungren is in serious, serious trouble.  This is not going to be a normal election year in California.  And it’s going to put the lie to the primary rationale for redistricting that Arnold Schwarzenegger is peddling to reporters.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the Kremlin in Russia sees more turnover than the statehouse in Sacramento, as he made the case for Proposition 11 Thursday in a conference call.

“We have to make our politicians responsive to the people, not to the party,” Schwarzenegger said, joined by state AARP president Jeannine English and national AARP CEO Bill Novelli.

Well, the Kremlin is going to see some shakeups this year.  I don’t know if people are going to make the connection between all that turnover and the inherent fallacy that re-gerrymandering would allow for more competition, but maybe some of that late money flowing to No on Prop. 11 can make that case.  Because the facts are that the Yacht Party is on the verge of being wiped out, at the state and federal level.  And no redistricting had anything to do with it.

Congratulations to Debra Bowen.  Under her leadership, a record 17.3 million Californians are registered to vote in the November election.  That is 74.56% of total eligible voters, which isn’t too bad.  Bowen released the statistics today, and there are lots of interesting numbers in there.

Here are the county stats.  Democrats have a 2.25 million voter lead on Republicans, and represent 44.40% of the electorate, as opposed to 31.37% for the Yacht Party.  Riverside and Imperial Counties are still below the average for eligible voters (both around 65%), but well up from earlier in the year, a great boon for Manuel Perez’ efforts.  Orange County is among the best for percentage of eligible voters registered, with 86%.  Democrats have taken control in San Bernardino County, with a 10,000-vote lead.  And in San Diego County, the spread is an incredible 400 votes (539,560 for Democrats, 539,939 for Republicans).

Let’s go to the Congressional stats.

CA-03: Republicans outnumber Democrats now by just 9,000 votes, a difference of only 2.19%.  If Bill Durston doesn’t pull off the win, this is the #1 targeted seat for 2010.

CA-04: Still a hefty lead for registered Republicans, 45.94% to 31.06%.

CA-11: Registered Republicans still outnumber registered Dems here, but by only 3,800 votes (about 1%).

CA-26: Now a 20,000 vote spread (around 5.5% lead for Republicans).

CA-45: Republicans outnumber Democrats by 16,000 votes (4.6%).  This seat also needs to be targeted heavily now and in the future.  

CA-46: 31.91% for Democrats, 44.07% for Republicans.

CA-50: 31.35% for Dems, 40.55% for Republicans.

Here’s the Assembly.

AD-10: Literally 100 votes separate Democrats and Republicans here.  But you know, it’s hopelessly gerrymandered.

AD-15: Democrats have 12,000 more votes than Republicans (3.5%).

AD-26: Democrats outnumber Republicans by 5,000 votes (2.4%).

AD-30: A 13,000 vote lead for Democrats.

AD-36: Again, 100 votes separate Democrats and Republicans.  I didn’t realize it was this close.  Linda Jones has a real shot.

AD-37: Republicans have the advantage by 16,000 votes (around 6%).

AD-38: Republicans have a 9,000 vote advantage.

AD-63: That’s only an 8,000 vote lead for Republicans.

AD-78: Democrats have fully 26,000 more registered voters than Republicans (a lead of 11%).

AD-80: It’s a 15,000 vote lead here, 44.99% to 37.17%.

Six seats flipping, given the expected big turnout, is definitely a possibility.

The State Senate shows gains in SD-12 (47.33% Democratic, 33.41% Republican), SD-15 (40.86% Democratic, 34.82% Republican) and SD-19, where Democrats hold the registration advantage by a thin 1,058 votes.  2/3 is within reach by 2010.

Yesterday, every living governor in the state stood together at a news event to oppose Prop. 5.  The Yes on 5 campaign had exactly the right response – this shows what a bipartisan failure prison policy has been in California, and continues to be.  Arianna Huffington has a stellar post about this today.

Here is picture that sums up much that is wrong with American politics. Five governors of California, Democrats and Republicans, joining forces to oppose something that is indisputably in the public interest.

This is an image that could be repeated, with different faces, in region after region of our country, involving issue after issue. Public officials standing against the public good, with the disastrous results on display from Detroit to Wall Street. All suffering from the same destructive force: the power of entrenched special interests to cloud the vision of our leaders, causing them to thwart good sense, good legislation, and the will of the people

Huffington rightly points out the horrific state of California prisons.

California’s prisons are a budget-busting debacle. There are currently more than 170,000 inmates crammed into prisons designed to hold 100,000 people. Around 70,000 of these prisoners are nonviolent offenders, with over half of them incarcerated for a drug offense.

A large part of the problem is a parole system the New York Times recently called “perhaps the most counterproductive and ill-conceived” in the U.S.. California’s recidivism rate is 70 percent — twice the national average. This stems in no small measure from the state’s insistence on treating paroled murderers the same way as paroled nonviolent drug offenders. They all spend 3-5 years on parole. This overburdens parole officers, who end up spending very little time with any of their charges — violent or nonviolent (According to the Times, 80 percent of California parolees have fewer than two 15-minute meetings with their parole officer per month.) Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep a closer watch on rapists and killers than on nonviolent drug offenders?

As a result of this dysfunctional system, prison costs have risen 50 percent since 2000, to over $10 billion a year — close to 10% of the state’s budget (and roughly the same amount California spends on higher education). It costs $46,000 a year to keep a nonviolent prisoner in the state behind bars. Is it any wonder California is gushing red ink?

And as bad as this sounds, she leaves something out.  The health care system is so substandard that California is systematically violating the Constitutional rights of everyone it incarcerates, subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment.  And even after they have been forced by court orders to remedy the situation, the state has refused to do so, setting up a showdown and a possible contempt-of-court order against the Governor himself.  This is how big the failure of leadership is on our prisons.  The only thing politicians can agree on is that we must keep scaring the citizenry into warehousing prisoners over and over, without trying to actually treat and rehabilitate them.

Huffington then describes Prop. 5.

Prop 5 is structured to build on the proven success of Prop 36, a law promoting drug treatment over incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. It was approved by 61 percent of California voters in 2000, despite almost unanimous opposition from public officials. Since being enacted, Prop 36 has saved California taxpayers $2 billion — and graduated 84,000 people who, according to studies, are far less likely to become repeat offenders […]

Yet Prop 5 is struggling because of a very powerful special interest: the prison guards union. It has funneled $1.8 million into the campaign to derail Prop 5.

For the guards, prison overcrowding means more overtime pay. So the state’s prison industrial complex has unleashed the full force of its financial power — funding an array of ads that blatantly mischaracterize Prop 5. Truth has gone out the window, replaced by overheated claims that the initiative is a “drug dealer’s bill of rights,” “a get out of jail free card” for meth dealers, and a law that will allow parents to abuse their kids and escape punishment.

Goodbye reform, hello fear. The special interests are, once again, overwhelming the public interest.

The prison guards are powerful enough that everyone who might want to be Governor – Jerry Brown, DiFi – would rather break with the stated position of the Democratic Party than defy them.  And so these tough on crime Democrats want to jump back into the rabbit hole and further the absolute and utter failure – maybe the biggest failure in the state, demonstrably so – to stay on the good side of a union who can lavish them with campaign contributions.  It’s utterly disgusting and shameful.

This is not going to happen often, folks, so get it while it’s hot.

Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer thinks calling California’s termed-out lawmakers back to the Capitol after the Nov. 4 election is “absurd.”

“With the philosophical differences still firmly in place it is unlikely anything will be finalized” before lawmakers are forced from office on Dec. 1, Spitzer writes on his blog.

“As a termed out legislator, I feel it is absurd that my termed out colleagues and I could potentially be called back to try and fix the ever increasing budget deficit. Both sides have no incentive to reach across the aisle and accomplish anything, especially since Election Day will be in our past.”

He happens to be absolutely right.  As CapAlert noticed yesterday, a special session beginning on November 5 would have to reach agreement before the December 1 swearing-in of new lawmakers.  Throw in Thanksgiving and you’re talking about 10, maybe 15 business days, tops, to hammer out a deal.  And Yacht Party charter member Spitzer would know – the Republicans aren’t likely to agree to anything.

Why not let the will of the people express itself on November 4, and let the new solution to the budget mess flow naturally from that?  If the public wants Democrats to hold 2/3 of the legislature, so be it.  They would be making the choices on revenue and spending that they wish the legislature to enact.  To have a lame-duck session invalidates their wishes.  So much for the Governor of the people.