So the latest poll on Prop. 8 has come out from the PPIC, showing the No side still ahead, albeit with a narrower lead than the last time PPIC was in the field.

A majority of Californians still oppose a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the margin is narrowing so notably that the fate of Proposition 8 may hinge on the turnout for the presidential race.

A new poll released late Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California shows Prop. 8 losing 52 to 44 percent among likely voters. That eight-point margin has narrowed from the 14-point spread that PPIC polls found in August and September. Just 4 percent of likely voters remain undecided.

“The vote on Proposition 8 could get closer between now and the election, because we know that Californians are evenly divided in general on whether they favor or oppose gay marriage,” said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the PPIC.

There should be a Field Poll on this next week.  But I think it’ll confirm what we see here – a close race that either side can take.  The polling guru Nate Silver of 538 waded into this today.

Both the PPIC and SurveyUSA polls have Barack Obama leading by large (20+ point) margins, so I’m not sure that opponents of the measure can count on some sort of turnout surge above and beyond what is already reflected in the polls. There are evidently fair numbers of Obama/’Yes on 8′ tickets, especially among the state’s black and Latino populations.

On the one hand, there have been suggestions that there is something of ‘Bradley Effect’ on polling on gay marriage bans, and that such measures tend to overperform their polls, although a more recent analysis refutes this suggestion.

On the other hand, because ballot measures are confusing, it is usually better to be on the ‘No’ side of them … people tend to vote ‘no’ on things that they don’t understand. In this case, that gives an advantage to the marriage equality folks. (It may even be the case that some voters vote ‘no’, thinking that they’re voting no to gay marriage, when in fact the wording of the resolution is such that a ‘no’ vote protects gay marriage).

I’d peg the ‘no’ side as about a 55/45 favorite, but not more than that.

Sounds pretty accurate to me.  So what can turn the tide in this race at this late date?  Well, there are the human interest stories like this ex-mayor of Folsom coming out and opposing Prop. 8 in an emotional display.  I think putting a face on whose rights would be eliminated can be powerful.  There is also value in putting a spotlight on the extremism and basic indecency coming from the Yes side.

Standing there as the “Yes on 8” rally outside Oakland’s Foothill Missionary Baptist Church began to wind down today, I noticed a gentleman in the crowd approach an elderly woman who was holding a “Gay marriage = legal perversion” sign. I eavesdropped – hey, that’s my job – as he told her he agreed with her sign completely, but he urged her to ditch it and just use a “Yes on 8” sign instead because her homemade sign’s sentiment might turn off some voters.

They’re trying to hide their wingnuts, but they’re pretty ubiquitous.  And this story seems to me to be a good one to push, considering that one of the key arguments of the Yes side concerns classroom indoctrination.

A Salinas High School teacher who distributed “Yes on Proposition 8” literature to her students last week has been asked to refrain from doing so by administrators […]

The literature that was passed out to students says it is important to protect marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.

The one-page statement also says it is critical to vote yes on Proposition 8, saying its failure would eventually force the state to approve “polygamy, polymory, incest, group and other ‘creative’ arrangements for marriage.”

Think of the children!

But a more controversial idea, expressed by Andrew Sullivan, is that Barack Obama should get involved in this race.  Obama has already expressed his opposition to Prop. 8, but Sullivan argues that he should do more.

As expected, one reason Proposition 8, stripping gay couples of marriage equality, is still viable in California is because of strong African-American support. Black Californians back the anti-gay measure by a margin of 20 points, 58 – 38, in the SUSA poll. No other ethnic group comes close to the level of opposition and black turnout is likely to be very high next month.

All this makes it vital, in my opinion, that Barack Obama strongly and unequivocally oppose Proposition 8 in California, rather than keeping mainly quiet as he has done so far. We need him to make an ad opposing it.  This is a core test of whether gay Americans should back Obama as enthusiastically as they have in the last month. If he does not stand up for gay couples now, why should we believe he will when he is in office? And if black Americans are the critical bloc that helps kill civil rights for gays, that will not help deepen Obama’s governing coalition. It could tear it apart.

I think Sen. Obama is focused on winning a different election right now.  Still, even a small measure, like sending out a fundraising appeal to his California list, could speak volumes.  And as he’s already on the record, it’s not like the McCain campaign couldn’t already point to the issue if they so chose.

What do you think?

The 4th District had a debate as well last night, the fifth and final of the campaign, and it was spirited.

Every scathing remark and harsh charge that’s gone back and forth in the congressional race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown got one more airing Tuesday night.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the South Nevada County Chamber of Commerce south of Grass Valley, McClintock was painted as a do-nothing career politician and Brown as a tax-loving big-government advocate.

And there was also some talk about issues, mixed in with the shots, though sometimes each answer was equal parts both.

It was the usual nonsense: McClintock wants to drill here and drill now.  McClintock wants no taxes and no government.  McClintock wants to privatize Social Security (yes, even now).  McClintock thinks Keebler elves can build the roads and bridges and a thimble-full of oil can power a Lexus.  He’s a magical thinker.  But I have to say that this was my favorite part, and not just because McClintock doesn’t know the meaning of the word “liquidity.”

McClintock also roundly criticized the recently passed Wall Street bailout package, saying the better route was to put liquidity into the market.

Brown countered that he supported the plan because something needed to be done, then made reference to recent Federal Election Commission reports that showed McClintock’s campaign in debt.

“You can’t even run your own campaign on a balanced budget, so I don’t trust you to run our nation’s budget,” Brown said.

Brown also hit McClintock over spending the past two years in Sacramento without getting one piece of legislation passed.

Brown took aim at McClintock’s record as a state legislator, making reference to a recent Sacramento Bee story that reported McClintock had a perfect record of getting no legislation passed in the last two years.

“This is about actual results, and not talking about what you want to do unless you propose something else you can get passed,” Brown said.

The debate is not going to have a major viewing audience.  But the airwaves will, and the DCCC has just dropped a long-awaited ad in the district.  It’s good.

That’s quite a lot for 30 seconds, but they pretty much cover California’s Alan Keyes and make him out to be the punchline that he is.

The question is whether or not McClintock has 10 cents to respond to this.

So Debbie Cook and Dana Rohrabacher debated yesterday afternoon.  I could write 1000 words about it, but I could also just provide you with this picture, which says it all:

As in, “I can’t believe I actually have to run for my seat.”

But if you want to know about the substance, Todd Beeton, who was there, has a writeup.

But even though crazy Dana is always likely to say some crazy shit, and he did, what I took away from the debate most of all was how unabashedly progressive Debbie Cook is and how lucky we would be to have her in Congress. This is a fairly red (albeit getting bluer every day) district, one where you might expect the Democratic challenger to moderate her views for the electorate. Nope, not Debbie. I’ll write about the debate more later, hopefully with video, but here are just three of the issues where Debbie shined today:

• On global warming, Cook, who is an energy expert, in response to Rohrabacher’s global warming denier nonsense, asserted “The debate is over. I can’t get into a discussion over climate change, to me it’s just a fact, we need to move on to solving our oil depletion problems.”

• On Proposition 8: “I strongly oppose Proposition 8, I am in favor of full marriage equality.”

• And on healthcare reform, Cook advocated for a single-payer Medicare for all model. “Health care is a right every American should enjoy.”

Yes, Crazy Dana denied global warming.  Again.  Not sure if he attributed it to dinosaur flatulence this time.  But here’s the actual discussion:

Rohrabacher went on to accuse those “who claim that humankind is changing the climate,” including Cook and his other opponents, of fear mongering.

“[They are] trying to stampede us into policies that will take us towards technologies that just deal with carbon dioxide and have nothing to do with personal health,” Rohrabacher said.

Cook, who led Huntington Beach in joining the U.S. Mayor’s Agreement on Global Warming, dismissed Rohrabacher’s claims, stating that the scientific debate over climate change had ended.

“Debating climate change is just a distraction from the real work that we all need to do,” Cook said. “Humans are overtaking the ability of the planet to sustain itself. Now, we need to move toward a green future because that’s the only thing that can save us.”

Apparently, Rohrabacher’s plan was to relate everything back to illegal immigration and the Wall Street bailout package, which he would have replaced with capital gains tax cuts and more deregulation, so I’m not seeing Mr. Populism in there.

Cook stayed on message and did not take the bait.  Here was her explanation.

After the debate, Cook explained why she refused to go after the incumbent.

“It’s not my style,” she said. “You don’t want to make the same mistake that the Republicans have made with McCain in going negative, negative, negative. I think it’s quite apparent that he’s done nothing for this district in 20 years. And if people don’t understand that, me telling them isn’t going to change anything.”

“He’s an a**,” Cook continued. “I can’t respond to him. He’s a liar.”

Meanwhile, I noticed something very interesting in Rohrabacher’s latest fundraising report:

Donald Segretti

self

09/27/2008

250.00

attorney

Yes, that Donald Segretti.  The head of the “dirty tricks” division of the Nixon campaign, the guy who stole stationery from Ed Muskie and wrote all kinds of lies about possible Nixon opponents in 1972, alleging Scoop Jackson had an illegitimate child and Hubert Humphrey was guilty of sexual misconduct and Muskie had insulted Franch-Canadians.  By the way, Segretti was a co-chair of John McCain’s Presidential campaign in 2000.  And he was Karl Rove’s mentor in ratfucking.

Donald Segretti offered J. Timothy Gratz $100.00 per month, plus expenses, to co-ordinate these projects. Gratz agreed to work on the project and he was given an advance payment of $50.00. Gratz later told Anthony Ulasewicz that “although the whole incident seemed strange” he agreed to help “as most of the ideas he suggested seemed like they were worth doing anyway”. However, Gratz claimed he told Karl Rove, Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, about this dirty tricks campaign. We now know that Rove himself was part of Segretti’s campaign. In fact, he probably played a leading role in this dirty tricks operation. Rove had become friends with CIA asset, Robert F. Bennett in 1968. According to one report, Bennett became a “mentor of Rove’s”.

In 1970, Karl Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing,” and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon’s rally.

Nice company that Rohrabacher attracts.

Donate to Debbie Cook: Having the money to get her message out is all that stands between her and victory.

Politico picks up the story of Tom McClintock’s fundraising woes, and the fact that he was in the red as of October 1.  I didn’t know this:

But according to his campaign finance reports, he heads into the home stretch without much campaign cash left. McClintock spent more money than he raised, ending September with just $94,000 in his campaign account.

He is not currently airing airing any television ads, and hasn’t been for the last two weeks.

If he’s off the air right now, it’s going to be next to impossible for him to get back on.  The NRCC doesn’t have a whole lot of money to play with, especially considering all the incumbents they have to defend.  And the GOTV efforts, radio, phone calls, mailers, etc., cost plenty of money.  If McClintock’s living from hand to mouth right now, he’s not going to get back on TV.  And needless to say, Charlie Brown has plenty of money to blanket TV in the final two weeks.  It’s incredible.

And what’s amazing is that this is how McClintock handled the primary as well.  He overspent early and wound up running on fumes the last couple weeks.  It wasn’t a big deal against Doug Ose, but against a formidable opponent like Brown it’ll matter.  The supposed fiscal conservative can’t even manage his own campaign stash.

Obviously, with just over two weeks to go, there’s quite a bit going on.

• CA-46: The Daily Pilot, a local paper in the district, writes about Debbie Cook:

Neither campaign would release its polling numbers, but both acknowledged that the affluent, heavily Republican coastal district that has primed Rohrabacher for victories in excess of 20 points in every election for the last decade will not be quite as friendly to the GOP candidate this year.

General frustration with the Bush administration, which has overseen the rapid deterioration of the American economy, is one of the biggest factors in heralding the turnaround for Democrats, according to UCI political science professor Carole Uhlaner.

“Given the combination of a strong, well-known current official with good funding and the change in the national tide there’s a chance that Rohrabacher could lose,” Uhlaner said.

And our pal Todd Beeton of MyDD writes up the great event for Debbie I attended yesterday.  But the pivotal moment of the campaign might be tomorrow at 11:15am.  Dana Rohrabacher and Debbie Cook will debate for the only time in the campaign.  We all know that when Crazy Dana opens his mouth, bad things happen for him.  We’ve seen on a national level what can happen to candidates with loose lips and an extremist ideology – ask Michelle Bachmann.  So we’ll be monitoring the debate tomorrow.

• CA-03: For some reason, Bill Durston is taking very seriously the Sacramento Bee’s endorsement of Dan Lungren.  Through his outreach to supporters, the letters to the editor in the wake of the endorsement were entirely on Durston’s side.  I don’t think these newspaper endorsements mean much, but it is something incumbents can use in their advertising, so it does have an impact.  And frequently these local editorial boards are pushing a conservative agenda that is resistant to change.

Speaking of debates, Lungren and Durston also have one tomorrow.  So there should be a lot of post-debate highlights to discuss.

• CA-04: I tend to think that this story, flagged by Dante over the weekend, is just devastating for Tom McClintock, so I’m going to post it again.

Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican in a Democratic-dominated state Legislature, is the only state lawmaker to fail to shepherd a single piece of legislation into law in the last two years.

Not that he seems to mind […]

“I came to the conclusion a long time ago that minority legislators have a choice,” said McClintock, who has served for 22 years in Sacramento. “One is to tinker at the margins and win very minor victories on unimportant matters and the other is to try to drive the public policy debate on major issues, sacrificing legislative victories for broader policy victories.”

I think America has had just about enough of obstructionist ideologues with no interest in governing.  If the Brown campaign plays this right, McClintock is toast.  This invalidates his entire candidacy.  It doesn’t surprise me that wingnuts are trying to wrap social issues around Brown’s neck to try and distract from this.  But at a fundamental level, Tom McClintock is telling the voters of CA-04 that he won’t lift a finger in Congress for them.  Since the Democrats will retain the majority, McClintock as a Congressman would be a press release machine without even trying to pass legislation.  It’s not his job, he thinks.  

That is a death rattle for McClintock.

• AD-15: If Dianne Feinstein is popular anywhere, it’s out in districts in the Central Valley like AD-15, and so her endorsement of Joan Buchanan is notable, also because she’s a habitually lazy campaigner and doesn’t do much for Democratic candidates historically. She’s also endorsed Fran Florez in AD-30 and John Eisenhut in AD-26.  This is the region where her endorsement can have the most effect.

• AD-36: Here’s a good piece from Dick Price about Linda Jones, the longshot candidate out in this district in the Antelope Valley.  She is a special ed. teacher in Palmdale and a board of Trustees member, looking to become the first Democrat to represent this area since 1974.  She sounds good to me:

Indeed, after putting up token opposition in recent races and losing by landslide margins, Democrats have finally leveled the playing field, narrowing the difference between Republican and Democratic registration to just 1.6%, according to the Jones campaign. Earlier this year, the Antelope Valley Press reported that 74% of new voters were registering as Democrats, compared to just 4% as Republicans, with the remaining registering as “decline to states.”

The region’s dramatic growth has not come without costs.

“Jobs here are either in aerospace or retail, so often people have to go into Los Angeles for work,” Jones says. “A third of the people are commuting downtown-that’s hard on people, their families, their marriages, their pocketbooks, their health.”

In Sacramento, Jones would work for a “Green Jobs” initiative, diversifying the Antelope Valley workforce, for example, by fostering much-needed solar and wind power industries that would create good-paying local jobs so fewer people would have to undertake the brutal commute downtown.

It would be incredible to win this seat.

• AD-10: The Sac Bee thinks that the race between Alyson Huber and Jack Sieglock will come down to turnout:

The game-changer for Alyson Huber or Jack Sieglock could be voter turnout to cast presidential ballots, said Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of California Target Book, which handicaps legislative races.

“How they vote for Obama probably will be the most important factor,” Hoffenblum said of 10th District residents, who tend to lean to the right – but by a dwindling margin.

The GOP’s edge in registered voters has fallen the past four years from 6 percentage points to just 2, giving Democrats an outside chance of an Assembly upset if Obama’s draw is decisively higher than McCain’s, Hoffenblum said.

Well that’s just devastating to Sieglock, because the excitement gap is much higher for Obama.  Then again, he won’t be doing a lot of GOTV in California, so Huber’s going to need to run a strong operation of her own.  The two candidates are even in fundraising, but Huber is getting major IE help.

• AD-80: Great new ad from Manuel Perez:

• SD-19: The money is pouring into this race, as it’s the only one contested on the Senate side.  Tony Strickland has outraised Hannah-Beth Jackson by about $3 million to $2 million, but 53% of Strickland’s take is from business PACs.  Meanwhile, Strickland dropped an illegal mailer:

Tony Strickland has reached a new low in his dishonest campaign against Hannah-Beth Jackson. Yesterday, voters in the 19th District received a mailing from Strickland’s campaign titled “Hannah-Beth Jackson’s Economic Plan.” Inside, the mailing contained Strickland’s predictable false charges about Hannah-Beth Jackson and taxes.

The mailing was clearly designed to look like it was coming from Hannah-Beth Jackson’s campaign.

Expect an ugly last two weeks.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has released a new poll showing Nick Leibham well-positioned to knock off xenophobe Brian Bilbray in CA-50.

A building Democratic wave is about to hit San Diego beaches. The campaign of former prosecutor Nick Leibham is surging, and Leibham is now in a statistical dead heat with incumbent Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray, 42 to 44 percent.

Key Findings

Leibham launched an extremely effective and aggressive mail and television advertising blitz against Bilbray that features a four-star general criticizing Bilbray’s vote against the G.I. Bill. As a result, Leibham has pulled into a statistical tie with the incumbent (42 to 44 percent) after trailing by 19 points (35 to 54 percent) as recently as August.

Barack Obama is also running strong in California’s 50th Congressional District, leading John McCain by double digits (53 to 41 percent). The environment is now ripe for Democratic victories in a district George W. Bush won by 11 points – twice. Concerns about the economy dominate the political landscape, President Bush is more unpopular than ever, and five out of six voters think the country is off on the wrong track.

Leibham’s strong position is due to his appeal beyond Democratic base voters. He currently wins four out of five (79 percent) Democrats, while Bilbray wins three out of four (75 percent) of Republicans. The biggest difference, however, is that Leibham holds a 16-point advantage among voters not aligned with either party (48 to 32 percent)

Democrats have been coming close in this seat ever since the Duke-Stir, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, was sent to jail in 2006.  Francine Busby lost a special election and then the general election to Bilbray.  The third time may be the charm.

Over the weekend, we learned about YPM, the voter registration company hired by the state Republican Party which was illegally switching voters’ party affiliations under false pretenses, and (this is the buried lede) changing their ballot status in a clear act of voter suppression:

Those who were formerly Democrats may stop receiving phone calls and literature from that party, perhaps affecting its get-out-the-vote efforts. They also will be given only a Republican ballot in the next primary election if they do not switch their registration back before then.

Some also report having their registration status changed to absentee without their permission; if they show up at the polls without a ballot they may be unable to vote.

Robert Cruickshank mentioned that the head of YPM has been arrested in this case and charged with voter registration fraud.  In response, the Yacht Party has decided to attack Debra Bowen:

On the eve of California’s voter registration deadline, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has decided to once again show her partisan colors and charge an individual for questions surrounding his own, personal voter registration stemming from 2006 and 2007.  

The fact that these charges are being leveled against an individual operating in a highly-contested area of California, and the significant gap between recent allegations and the charges we’ve seen today suggests that this is politically motivated.

It’s clear that Bowen, herself the recipient of an ACORN endorsement (still displayed on her campaign website), has elevated these issues to achieve maximum political benefit and deflect attention from the Democratic Presidential nominee’s high-profiled problems and associations with the radical community activist group ACORN.

While we condemn voter fraud in all forms, it is evident that Debra Bowen is using her office to play politics with the public’s perception of political parties.  This is inappropriate at least, and an abuse of her office and a willing suspension of her duties at worst.

Now, let’s make clear that in the original article, YPM founder Marc Jacoby cited Bowen’s work – falsely – to prove his own innocence:

He also said that plainclothes investigators for Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a Democrat, have conducted multiple spot checks and told his firm it is doing nothing improper.

“Every time, they gave us a thumbs-up,” Jacoby said. “People are not being tricked.”

But Nicole Winger, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office, said the agency “does not give an OK or seal of approval to voter registration groups.”

That’s an out-and-out lie, and it’s completely within the purview of the Secretary of State to enforce the laws regarding voter registration.  The Yacht Party is being completely disingenuous about Jacoby’s illegality here (“personal voter registration” my ass), and they dredge up ACORN, which is not only unrelated to the YPM case, but a situation where paid registration gatherers were defrauding ACORN more than anything else.  But it’s not surprising to see the Yacht Party fan the fires of hate and use the ACORN scapegoat to answer for their own illegal activities.

And this is Yacht Party illegality.  Steve Poizner paid for the YPM voter drive and put a bounty on new registrations.

This story is starting to hit traditional media.  Debra Bowen did nothing but her job, and she needs to be supported.  Whether you write a letter to the editor, call the Yacht Party offices (hey, here’s contact information, imagine that) or just spread the word to your friends and neighbors, do something to call out Republican voter suppression today.