California Insider

Well if the gov wins three out of four or otherwise does well next week, it's going to be a repudiation to traditional pollsters and a validation of the new, offbeat methods. So far the traditionalists -- Field and PPIC -- have him consistently down and doing worse. The new-fangled polls have him doing better. SurveyUSA uses recorded voices to question voters and very short, snappy questions. Now there is this Stanford poll that uses a scientifically selected sample who give their opinions on-line by filling out a simulated ballot. It also has the governor's slate doing well. Both SurveyUSA and the Stanford outfit polled in the recall, by the way, and both pretty much nailed it.

Warren Beatty cuts a radio ad for the nurses bashing Schwarzenegger. The message: get out and vote. You can hear it here.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. has released a study by the Center for Government Analysis on the growth of state and local revenues and expenditures since Proposition 13 was passed in 1978. The study is not a comprehensive comparison of total state and local spending before and after 13, a task that would require sorting out all the transfers back and forth over time. But it does seem to have value in providing numbers for each level of government in isolation: the state, counties, cities, schools and special districts, in inflation-adjusted, per-capita dollars. For the schools, for instance, it says that revenues for K-12 per pupil, adjusted for inflation, have grown by 30 percent since Prop. 13 was passed.

I'd love to hear from anybody who has the time to read the entire report and has comments on the accuracy of its data and conclusions and the soundness of its methods. Also: has anybody seen a similar work done by anyone else?