Governor Schwarzenegger may have been a nearly complete disaster as a pro-environment Republican, but the JoinArnlod blog knows a thing or two about recycling spin. Just a few weeks ago they tried the same tactic they tried yesterday, and we gave them a hard time about this approach then, too. If they’re going to try the same spin over again, there’s just nothing else we can do. Go read their post, go read our post, yadda yadda yadda.
This time though, Mr. Stutzman mentioned “Union Democracy.” Interesting choice of topic for them to bring up: how exactly does JoinArnold imagine that having people from outside their organizations making decisions for them constitute greater democracy? Keep in mind that unions are already democratic organizations, and should absolutely be able to make their own decisions about how they choose to run their political operations. There is nothing at all preventing unions from enacting a rule like this themselves, or for that matter from sending donations to Republicans. Having people outside these organizations make decisions for them isn’t democracy, it’s meddling and a power grab.
Besides the fact that it’s just wrong for the Governor to be attacking any democratic institution like this, union dues are one of the last meager lines of defense keeping Sacramento from being completely overrun with the corporate special interests that are motivating the Governor’s attacks. This initiative was up in the polls, but it’s going to drop once people figure out what a terrible idea it is and who is pushing it.
Here’s the summary of the other results. They look good for us, but this election is going to hinge on base turnout for both sides. Given that this is all happening against a backdrop of understandably widespread dissatisfaction with the special election altogether, this is still a complete tossup:

* Proposition 74 (teacher tenure), 43% yes, 47% no
* Proposition 76 (school spending limits), 26% yes, 63% no
* Proposition 77 (redistricting), 33% yes, 50% no
* Proposition 78 (big pharma scam), 43% yes, 38% no
* Proposition 79 (real rx discounts), 34% yes, 40% no

One other quick hint to Mr. Stutzman: if you flip through the .pdf of the whole report, you’ll see that PPIC only polled on the initiatives that the Governor was actively supporting at the time. This was right before the state Republican convention where, in a gambit designed to motivate his base, the Governor announced that (of course) he was backing Prop 75, too. Now that the Gov’s in, maybe the numbers will go down!