With its portent of more Florida-like electoral chicanery, it had shaken my buddies in the liberal commentariat to their core: The proposed Republican-backed initiative to change the way California counts it electoral vote -- shifting from the winner-take-all method in place in 48 of the states to the one-congressional-district-one-vote method in place in Maine and Nebraska -- could have split the mega-state’s electoral vote in a way only a Republican could love. Instead of rewarding all of the Golden State’s 55 electoral votes to the victor (that is, to the Democratic nominee), the measure would have siphoned off 19 electoral votes -- roughly, the numerical equivalent of Ohio -- to the Republican, presuming he could carry the congressional districts that have Republican representatives. The initiative would go on the June primary ballot next year, when few Californians would bestir themselves to vote, and could just squeek through. And with that, the Republicans would hold the White House with a narrow electoral victory in November. I never believed any of this. California voters have been confronted with a series of initiatives over the years specifically intended to bolster Republican strength, chiefly ones that would change the reapportionment process in the GOP’s favor. None of them has passed. And the thought that the state’s Democrats and independents -- who are all but indistinguishable from Democrats when polled on their political beliefs -- would let this particular initiative pass was sheer fantasy. The rage that a clear majority of Californians feel towards Bush and his party cannot be overstated. Moreover, major Democratic funders – mega-donor Stephen Bing among them -- were prepared to drop a bundle on the campaign to defeat the initiative. The early polling on the measure was hardly auspicious. On first mention to state voters, it barely scraped 50 percent support, and that just registered voter reaction to the description of the initiative, with none of its political implications fleshed out. No California initiative in decades has succeeded if it didn’t start out with considerably more than 50 percent support. Republicans who understand California politics distanced themselves from the proposal. The Governator himself said he didn’t like it. Now, it looks as if the Democratic efforts to defeat the initiative won’t even be necessary. As reported in today’s Los Angeles Times, the initiative campaign is roughly $1.8 million shy of the $2 million usually needed to collect the signatures to place an initiative on the ballot, and the time for signature-gathering ends in November. The initiative’s two chief consultants told the Times on Thursday night that they had quit the campaign, one citing his frustration that he couldn’t determine the identity of the campaign’s only major donor. (A Missouri organization that receives and doles out right-wing donations -- and that had sent along $175,000 to the campaign from one donor it refused to name -- had declined even the campaign’s efforts to determine the donor’s identity.) The Times quoted Republican consultant Marty Wilson, who’d been fundraising for the initiative, who said, “the campaign never got off the ground.” A gratifying miscarriage of injustice. --Harold Meyerson
