On the eve of today's election, the talk was all about
Phil Angelides and sludge as
Steve Westly continued to air ads alleging a link between Angelides and an environmental lawsuit in Lake Tahoe. Angelides continued to bring surrogates out on damage control,
creating a buzz among political insiders that internal polls must show the damage is having an effect.
Seema Mehta and Robert Salladay
report in the Times that "[s]tate Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nuņez said Westly's attacks showed a lack of character. '
Shame on you, my friend,' Nuņez told the Los Angeles labor gathering. Another Angelides supporter, U.S. Sen.
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), called on Westly's campaign to apologize for its 'trash talk' and 'over-the-top negative tactics.'"
"But the Westly campaign did not apologize, and a 15-second version of the Lake Tahoe ad continued airing. Westly also defended it in remarks to reporters on Olvera Street, saying the state sued Angelides for dumping sludge 'into one of the cleanest lakes in the world.'"
With
overall turnout projected to test historic lows, Angelides is counting on a huge labor turnout today to win, even while Westly stopped the bleeding down the stretch. Most polls in the last few days have found the race within the margin of error.
The LAT's Joe Mathews looks at
whether labor is focused enough to deliver a victory.
"Even a member of Angelides' traveling party Monday,
Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, said of the primary: "It doesn't have the same intensity.
We are saving our energy for the big one in the fall."
"The unions, which last year could focus entirely on the governor, now have priorities other than Schwarzenegger's defeat."
Mathews notes that the California Nurses Association is focused on its election reform initiative for November and the California Teachers Association may be committed to a much smaller campaign than it led against the governor's ballot measures in 2005.
"'People are exhausted after last year,' said
Sandra Fink, a Glendale physical education teacher, who worked on a CTA phone bank. 'We've got to give people a chance to catch their breath.'"
What do you mean catch your breath? That's twenty more laps for you!
Mary Anne Ostrom and Edwin Garcia
find some undecided voters for the Merc News. "
I'm so disgusted with the whole lot of them,' said
Cheryl West of Thousand Oaks, who was eating a Mexican lunch on Olvera Street. A regular Democratic voter, she said she planned to stay home from the polls today. '
All these ads, I can't tell them apart and I don't know who to believe.'"
...and that's just the way they like it.
"
Diane Kranz of Sherman Oaks, who watched Westly shaking hands with people at the farmers market in Los Angeles, said: '
Yeah, I need to vote. But I don't really know who for.'"
The U-T's John Marelius says all of this is
likely to depress voter turnout. "Election analysts are predicting a record low turnout and that a large percentage of those who vote will do so by absentee ballot rather than at their polling places.
That, combined with a laborious manual count in one of the state's largest counties and the potential for voting glitches elsewhere, could mean that it may take many hours or even days to determine Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's general election opponent."
In fact, the Field Poll says today could see the
lowest voter turn out ever. The Bee's Laura Mecoy reports, "The survey estimated 5.3 million Californians will cast ballots in today's primary election, or
just 34 percent of those registered. That would be fewer than one in four of those who are adult citizens and eligible to vote.
'It's a continuation of the really low turnout for gubernatorial primaries that you have seen over the last 20 years,' said
Mark DiCamillo, Field Poll director. 'But this would be an all-time low.'"
Meanwhile, if the election is as close as projected, we
may be at the mercy of Alameda County.
"The county's board of supervisors voted in March to return to paper ballots until the county could replace the 4,000 Diebold Election Systems touchscreen machines. County officials hope to have new machines in time for the November election, but they still are negotiating with several companies."
"While some other counties are doing the same, Alameda, which has 82,114 of the state's 6.7 million registered Democrats, is in a jam because it does not have enough optical scanners to count paper ballots at all polling places."
"As a result, paper ballots will be trucked to a central location, scanned and counted by volunteers. The final count could be as late as noon Wednesday, [elections spokesman
Guy] Ashley said."
And in case anybody is interested in anything legislative, the budget conference committee continued its work yesterday in preparation of having all of their work undone by the Big 5. Meanwhile, some analysts are now questioning
whether the speaker's cable dereg bill will actually lower rates for consumers.
"Analysts agreed that additional entrants in the cable TV market would create more competition and could ultimately benefit consumers.
But not all are convinced that AT&T dueling with companies like Comcast and SureWest for TV customers will pull down prices," reports the Bee's Clint Swett.
'None of these players wants to enter into a price war,' said
Jimmy Schaeffler, an analyst for the Carmel Group, a Carmel-by-the-Sea firm that follows the cable TV industry."
From our
Religious Right Field Day Files, on this 6-6-6, our thoughts turn to the town of Hell, Michigan, which is
celebrating the ominous date in style. "Nobody is more fired up than
John Colone, the town's self-styled mayor and owner of a souvenir shop.
"'I've got '666' T-shirts and mugs. I'm only ordering 666 (of the items) so once they're gone, that's it,' said Colone, also known as Odum Plenty. 'Everyone who comes will get a letter of authenticity saying you've celebrated June 6, 2006, in Hell.'"
Now we just can't wait to see what kind of wacky quote
Pat Robertson comes up with about today's date. Speaking of which, if you're going to Hell today, you better make sure to stock up on the
Pat Robertson energy drink before you go.
That's right -- the evangelical quote machine has more than a scary smile and an 800 number, he's also got his own exercise elixir. But it will no longer be sold at the local Roids Repository.
"U.S. nutritional supplement firm GNC Corp. will no longer sell a protein drink associated with the Rev. Pat Robertson, a noted televangelist," reports UPI.
"The corporation, which did not elaborate on the reason for its move, comes despite high praise from the drink's creator, the head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, The New York Times reported Monday."
"Robertson, 76,
credits his 'protein shake' with the ability to leg press 2,000 pounds -- 665 pounds more than the current world record."
And you thought Steve Westly made ridiculous claims in
his ads.
