Slightly Misleading Stat of the Day

Reading this article from the LAT about Hollywood moguls in support of Gov. Schwarzenegger, there's one line that, most likely, is intentionally misleading

In this election year, Schwarzenegger has been on a public pursuit of Democrats. To win reelection, he needs to capture their votes; Republicans represent only 34% of California's electorate.

True, almost, actually it's currently 34.7%, so if they are rounding it should be 35%, but that's merely a quibble.

Angelides is in the same boat as Schwarzenegger, he can't win if only Democrats vote for him, as they represent only 42% (OK, I lied, it should be 43%, 42.7 to be exact) of the electorate. If only the party faithful voted, then Angelides' advantage is 7% 8% (I knew I should have broken out the trusty old calculator to do those tricky calculations), significant, but not insurmountable.

In other words, an energized Republican base could still defeat an apathetic Democratic base, despite the overwhelming Democratic majorities in LA, SF and SJ (SD is more or less Republican) (the rest of the state is more or less even to Republican leaning, but the coastal metropolitan megapoli represent more than half of the electorate).

Problem is, Schwarzenegger won't energize the Republican base, in fact he's running away from them, but Angelides won't do any better with the Democratic base, he's uncharasmatic, clearly a tool of the public sector unions, and seems to have no policy goals, or positions, other than he's a Democrat, and not Schwarzenegger.

So the election will be decided by the 22.6% of Californians registered as neither Republican or Democrat.

Even though, taken as a group, those voters lean Democratic in some things, they don't trust obvious party tools like Angelides.

It will be impossible to paint Schwarzenegger as an extreme conservative, or Bush crony, so instead they'll have to run on policy.

Bad news for Angelides, Gov. Schwarzenengger has done as good a job of governing as anybody could be expected to do. He quickly put the failed special election initiatives behind him (all of which were good ideas, and but for massive spending from public sector unions, might have gained more traction) and will probably win reelection with ease. Budgets have been signed on time, he's recently escaped a major energy crisis without mass blackouts, and he's still a star who despite his accent, really knows how to communicate.

Of course, as they did in the run up to the recall, the LAT will do every possible trick in their power to keep that from happening. Luckily noone really pays attention to them anymore.