Thanks for the link, Ace. Much is at stake for this special election on November 8.

By the way, we're also debuting the first-ever "Carnival of Arnold." Details here, including snappy logo.

Humorous submissions welcome -- which opens the doors to many of your witty readers. Check it out.

p.s. Is Wings still on? Dammit. Tivo it, people.

The media has also been doing the same thing to Arnold in CA as they have been done to Bush nationally. They keep claiming inherent weakness and "falling" poll numbers, but they'll probably be in for a surprise on election day. I live in San Francisco, and even a good amount of people that I talk to around here think that Arnold is on to something with these intiatives.

We'll see.

I live in SF too, and the endless liberal closed-feedback-loop machine here feels pretty confident that Arnold's measures are going to be defeated. I saw a bunch of them driving around the city in a banner-festooned van this weekend, honking the horn and yelling. I don't think they appreciated the bird I flipped them.

Me, I voted already. Absentee rules -- it really makes it convenient to stick it to the bitchy public unions. Plus, I already voted against the SF handgun ban initiative, which will unfortunately probably pass anyway.

But, Alex, didn't you know that the LOUDER YOU SAY SOMETHING, the more TRUE it is? The loudspeakers are just speaking TRUTH TO POWER man.

Glad to see a fellow traveller in SF.

Cheers mate!

Do not vote for 77. I say this as a conservative. The guy who wrote it (I've met him and talked about it) is pretty clueless and is one of those angry, blustery populists who Just. Wants. To. DO. SOMETHING! without thinking about the consequences.

I really hope Prop 77 passes. California is so gerry-mandered, it's funny. Take a look at a map of congression districts, and look at district 23. I don't think Prop 77 is particularly well-written, but it's way better than the current arrangement.

Russell Wardlow:

I posted my comment before reading yours.

I understand what you're saying. I was tempted to reject it, too, until they come up with a better-written one. But we can pass this, get some actual fair elections, and then hopefully pass something better in the future. With a less gerrymandered state, future reform will be easier. California is in dire straits. Democrats are destroying our state.

All I can say is that the "flood the zone" adverts by the Unions/Democrats out to defeat 74-77 are WEAK.

Usually their scare-meisters do a good job at targeting the sub-100 IQ crowd but this time you'd actually have to have one of those helmets on and get picked up on a daily basis by a little yellow bus to belive their angle. In other words, the Union leadership and state workers are the only ones dull enough to buy their crap. I'm betting Arnold gets 3/4 passed. Lets hope so at least.

Ahem, some of us Wings fans are absentee voters, thank you very much.

Speaking as a San Franciscan, it does my heart good to see non idiotarian folks from San Francisco posting here. It's entirely too easy to feel like you're a lone voice in the wilderness in this town...

I'm really curious to see how props 74 - 77 do. Something tells me they're going to do quite a bit better than the "falling poll numbers" crowd would have us believe. Whenever I see the union ads against these propositions, I can't help but think that these folks are whistling in the dark. If defeating props 74-77 is going to be as certain as they would have us believe, what gives with the hysteric media blitz? Here in S.F. just about every TV commercial you see these days is some teacher's union spot against the reform propositions. Last time I checked, anything that the Governor was for, people in S.F. were against. So why are the union folks spending so much money running ads that preach to the choir? Perhaps they're not convinced that their base supports them...

Good on you Alex for voting against prop H (the handgun ban). Sure it'll get passed here, and then propmtly overturned in court (just as it was in 1982). All the same, I take satifaction in knowing that by voting against prop H, I'm essentially flipping Chris Daly the bird. Nothing wrong with that.

Has anyone seen the "No on H" signs yet? Are they only posting them out here in the Sunset?

G.D. Munem: It's entirely too easy to feel like you're a lone voice in the wilderness in this town...

I hear ya. I live in the south bay. Most of my friends, bless their hearts, are radical leftists. I hate when I'm at a party or something and politics comes up.

GD, I've seen a few of them South of Market. Strangely, overall, I haven't seen that many signs around town. I know it is a "special" election, but usually our overly political city lives for this stuff.

Then again, maybe there was just such an abundance of it last year that anything seems small in comparison.

I'm not sure if this is good guys or bad guys, but for Prop 73: It's Not About Aspirin

Don't believe any polls. Some say they are all leading. Other say they're all trailing. We won't know until the vote is done, so as Ace says, "get down to their [your] local polling place and pull a lever."

It's simple.
Either look at the election pamphlet that explains measures and the 'for' and 'against' arguments (noting which measures the usual suspects are 'against'), or looking at what your local liberal rag (NY Times-owned, no doubt) endorses, and vote opposite.

Oh, and by the way, I'm 5th generation San Franciscan. I'm in Sonoma County, but plenty of family still in SF, and they intend to keep their guns.
Hey, eat at Scoma's!!

Uncle Jefe,

I got food poisoning at Scoma's! I've been back after that episode and it has been just fine though...

That really surprises me, TF6S.
They do an unbelievable job of sanitation at that place, and you would not believe how high the quality is of the product they bring in (unless, of course, you eat there!). I mean fresh! Can't beat the portions either.
I worked there for some years (a decade ago; I still visit), so I'm telling you from the inside perspective!
But nothing's worse than shellfish poisoning, and I had that from oysters at a friend's restaurant.
Just die, it's better.

I voted a week ago, but I'm still boggling over the fact that my choices and the list of San Jose Mercury News recommendations differed only by one proposition (note that my votes differed from those recommended on the California Conservative website by just one proposition also).

I can only conjecture that the regular Merc staff must have passed out from some drunken bacchanal and left some intellectually-gifted apprentice typesetter to compose their recommendations list.

I also suspect that there is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors going on about now with regard to polling. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Of course, even if they narrowly lose, the statists/unionists will have outspent the proponents by about five-to-one, and there's nothing that keeps the issue from being raised again, and again, and again, and again until those bankrolling the resistance run out of cash.