Dear California DUers: You have a ballot initiative to stop!

[Ian_rd]

In California, a Republican law firm with deep pockets and all the right friends in state government are set to smash California's winner-take-all system of electoral votes into a system whereby the state's 55 electoral votes are divided per election results in each of the congressional districts.

Personally, I think the winner-take-all system needs to go for all states, but if it is changed only selectively it tips the scales in favor of one side, in this case it would give the Republicans a HUGE advantage and handicap the Democrats in extreme fashion. More than any other vote tricks we know about, this is the one that could put them in the White House more than any other.

This is being done very quietly and would all but guarantee a Republican victory in 2008. What did Thomas Jefferson say about "eternal vigilance?" Like most vote-related initiatives by the Republican Party, they will steal your democracy with legal tricks, not tanks and secret police.

Read the article here

[AndyA]

1. Sometimes the GOP's dirty tricks backfire on them, but not always.

This sounds like an especially sneaky deed, and it should be squashed like the cockroach that it surely is.

K&R

[mile18blister]

2. Thanks for the head's up.

I never sign anything on a clipboard someone waives in my face while I'm trying to buy groceries, even if it's something I might support. Too many of these initiatives have hidden "gotcha's", and too many of these professional signature-gathers will do anything to get you to sign (like change the cover page, or trick you into signing more than one initiative).

The electoral college tends to disenfrancechise voters larger states, but chopping up the CA powerhouse unilaterly is not the answer.

[comtec]

3. The problem is LA

I'm from the bay area, and when I cast my absentee it will be a bay area county. The problem is LA, is a right conservative shit hole. LA usually goes rather conservative, as well as the more rural parts of the state. The main problem is that in major campaigns like this LA has a larger populace and generally over turns what the more sensible bay area votes against. I would point out that the gobernator was OVERWHELMINGLY voted AGAINST in the North. It was mostly the South that voted his stupidness in.

Generally bad laws are voted in from the south, good laws start up north. It's a populist view, but sadly it's generally very true. as long as they sell it to the south, the rest of the state will have to suffer with the consequences.

Oh well, Se la vie.

[mile18blister]

4. LA is NOT a right-wing shithole.

LA is a very blue city. LA county is also blue, the right-wing districts are mostly on the outer fringes, especially since many districts have been gerrymandered to include adjacent counties. Perhaps you've confused us with Orange County, San Diego County and the Inland Empire. Henry Waxman, Maxine Waters and others would be rather upset by your characterization of their districts.

[driver8]

5. Thank you...you saved my head from exploding.

I was about to launch a tirade regarding our "right-wing shithole". I don't think I would have been as diplomatic as you were.

"Right-wing shithole"? WTF?

[Throd]

6. Great, another smug Bay Aryan

There is plenty to criticize about Los Angeles, but "right conservative shit hole" would not be one of them.

[PurityOfEssence]

7. More tiresome, idiotic, incorrect, solipsistic, self-congratulatory Bay Area narcissistic bullshit

Take it from a graduate of U.C. Berkeley who lived in the Bay Area for over 11 years: you don't have a lock on culture, morality, liberalism or sweet and darling love of the beautiful things of life.

The late, great columnist Herb Caen put it perfectly, referring to the "San Francisco-Los Angeles one-way feud": they like us, and we hate them. L.A. is pretty damned blue, and it's pretty damned obvious. I, like many other Bay Area transplants live in a nice enclave called Silver Lake, which is quite reminiscent of the Oakland hills and an extremely blue area. It's also a great place to live--as is the Bay Area--and it's much more diverse.

Yes, the urban area has its purple and red areas, but they're mostly to the south in Orange County and to the east in the Inland Empire. There are 79 cities in Los Angeles County, and a lot of unincorporated area with sizable populations. To characterize such an incredibly diverse area so smugly is just silly. Little Armenia bears no resemblance to Beverly Hills, and unincorporated East L.A. couldn't be much different from Bel-Aire.

You're not only flat-out wrong, you're echoing a tiresome cliche.

Look at the maps for the gubernatorial recall, too: L.A. County is blue.

Remember, too: L.A. County has a population of just under 10 million people, in a state whose population is 35.5 million. It's bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware put together, with almost an extra Rhode Island to spare. Its population is larger than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire and Maine combined. It's a big and crowded place, and it's BLUE. (Crowded places tend to be blue, if you haven't noticed...)

Also, when slagging with snide ripostes, at least spell your French phrases correctly; it's not as if this one is a particularly rare one.

[ourbluenation]

8. Friend, I think you mean Orange County, or as I call it Behind The Orange Curtain n/t