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The San Diego Union-Tribune

Governor about to get answer on what voters think of agenda


November 6, 2005

Ten months ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed 2005 the "year of reform" and boldly predicted that if the Legislature failed to make fundamental changes in state government and its politics, "the people will rise up and reform it themselves."

In two days, Schwarzenegger will find out whether he was right or the people rise up against his vision of reform.

Tuesday's statewide special election will decide the fate of the Republican governor's four-part ballot agenda along with four other measures. But because the special election has thrown California into a year of incendiary partisan rancor, much more is at stake than a batch of complicated ballot propositions.

"I think it's flat-out a referendum on Arnold and his agenda," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California. "I don't think there's any way around that. He's made it so by his own rhetoric and his own positioning."

The Schwarzenegger camp insists the election is not a referendum on the governor, but a referendum on Sacramento.

"If people are happy with the way things are running in Sacramento, they should vote 'no' across the board," Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman Todd Harris said. "But if they want to send a message that business as usual ain't going to cut it anymore, then they should vote 'yes' on all four of these measures."

 Proposition 74 would extend the time it takes teachers to become permanent employees to five years from two.

 Proposition 75 would require public-employee unions to obtain the written permission of members to use their dues money for political purposes.

 Proposition 76 would limit state spending by tying it to the average revenue growth of the previous three years. The governor would be empowered to make midyear budget cuts if revenue fell behind spending and the Legislature failed to act within 45 days.

 Proposition 77 would take the power to redraw political district boundaries away from the Legislature and give it to a panel of three retired judges.

Also on the ballot are Proposition 73, which would require parental notification before a minor could have an abortion; Proposition 80, which would subject electrical utilities to greater regulation; Proposition 78, a discount prescription drug plan sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry; and Proposition 79, a rival drug plan sponsored by consumer groups.

Schwarzenegger was elected in the 2003 recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger, an action-movie hero, was wildly popular his first year in office as he forged bipartisan compromises to trim the state budget deficit and reign in workers' compensation costs.

This year, he abruptly veered from consensus-building to partisan confrontation with public-employee unions and legislative Democrats, and his popularity has sunk to the pre-recall level of Davis.

Democrats have been denouncing the idea of a special election all year, and now even some Republicans are calling it a colossal miscalculation.

"The governor lacked a strategy, blew his honeymoon and had a series of major blunders that came back to haunt him for a special election that never should have been called," GOP strategist Arnold Steinberg said.

Schwarzenegger's agenda has been a moving target throughout the year.

As announced in the January State of the State address, his plan was to cap state spending, overhaul public pension systems, pay teachers on the basis of merit rather than seniority, revamp the redistricting process and streamline the state bureaucracy.

But rather than drafting its own ballot measures, the Schwarzenegger camp adopted initiatives that others were already trying to qualify for the ballot or farmed out the work to supporters.

The result was pension and merit-pay initiatives that were dropped because of fatal wording flaws and a redistricting initiative that almost got thrown off the ballot because of petitioning mistakes. Along the way, teacher tenure and union dues were added to the package.

"They screwed it up right from the start," said Terry Christensen, a political science professor at San Jose State University. "The big mistake he made was early on, when he didn't follow through with specific initiatives on the reform issues that he talked about in the State of the State speech."

As Schwarzenegger daily makes the rounds of conservative talk-radio shows, the ever-optimistic governor insists that everything is on track for a big victory Tuesday.

"There's more and more momentum going our way," Schwarzenegger said Thursday on the "John and Ken" show on Los Angeles radio station KFI.

Public-opinion pollsters find momentum going in the opposite direction.

Results of a Field Poll released last week showed all four of the governor's initiatives running behind. Two other nonpartisan public polls had similar findings.

The Schwarzenegger campaign says its polls paint a much different picture, but it won't divulge specific numbers. Spokesman Harris said Propositions 74 and 75 and possibly 77 are winnable, though Proposition 76 is a decided underdog.

Gale Kaufman, campaign manager for the Alliance for a Better California, the umbrella organization of labor unions opposing Schwarzenegger's initiatives, puts it bluntly: "These are dead-bang losers."

So what would constitute a victory for Schwarzenegger on Tuesday? In a recent interview, the former champion bodybuilder put it in colorful but vague terms:

"I can try lifting 500 and make only 490, but 490 isn't bad either. So it's not like only when you make 500 you are good, and if you only make 450 or 490 you're not good. That doesn't exist. No. It could very well be that we go to these initiatives, and of the six things that we like (he has also endorsed but is not campaigning for Propositions 73 and 78), we make four of them and two not, and so be it.

"But the bottom line is we're going to go for the whole shot and we're going to go all out. I'm very optimistic, and I see victory."

Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at the University of California Riverside translates: "He needs a big win. He's going to claim it's a big win either way."

Schwarzenegger bases his boundless optimism on his recent history of political victories against what he portrays as superhuman odds – winning the recall race, passing Propositions 57 and 58 in March 2004 to pay down the budget deficit, and then in November defeating Proposition 66, which would have weakened the "three strikes" sentencing law.

In fact, the comparisons bear no resemblance to what he's facing now. At the outset of the Davis recall campaign, polls showed Schwarzenegger running a close second to Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante among the replacement candidates.

He then pulled ahead and into a comfortable lead. Propositions 57 and 58 began far behind but were rescued thanks to a bipartisan TV advertising campaign featuring Schwarzenegger – whose job-approval rating was then in the high 60 percent range, as opposed to the low 30s now – and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, by far the state's most popular Democrat.

Proposition 66 appeared headed for easy passage until Schwarzenegger, along with former Democratic Govs. Davis and Jerry Brown, weighed in. Democratic political consultant Garry South contended that Schwarzenegger and his advisers have learned the wrong lessons.

"In both cases, he did it with very strong bipartisan backing," South said. "But they wrongly and foolishly extrapolated from the recall and the Prop. 57-58 and 66 campaigns that this guy was a masterful campaigner who could sell ice to Eskimos and could sell pork pies in a synagogue."

John Marelius:

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