Real life is harder to keep to the script. Arnold got waxed in California. All eight Arnold-powered initiatives went down to defeat last night.
When I last checked last night it looked like the anti-labor initiative might win. But that one went down too. (In this post at TPMCafe Jo-Ann Mort explains how it was a good night for organized labor all across the country.)
The one note of ambivalence for me was Prop. 77, Arnold’s redistricting initiative. I’m not crazy about the idea of Republicans using redistricting reform to knock off Democrats while ramming through the most outlandish gerrymanders in the states they control (like Texas, for instance). But I’m more and more convinced that redistricting reform is a key plank in any serious reform agenda for this country. Not just a cudgel to loosen up entrenched GOP power in the House, but a genuine reform aimed at making politics more responsive to the popular will. In some ways I think it may prove more important than campaign finance reform, though I believe that is a key part of reform too.
Correction: There were eight initiatives in California. And they all went down. But only four of them were Arnold-backed.
