The above video is from the final rally of the Obama campaign held last night in Manassas Park, Virginia, in front of 90,000 people. My most politically cynical DC pal was there sitting 100 yards from the stage. He called me on the way home, at 3 a.m., his time, to tell me about the night. For once even he was giddy with….. hope.

And, look: I know this is absurdly irrational (and likely the worst sort of magical thinking), but I’m going to choose to believe that Madelyn Dunham—Toot—would not have left the room if she didn’t know her grandbaby was going to prevail tonight.

So, sue me.

(“In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”)

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Happy voting day. Whomever you favor, and whatever the outcome, we’re all in this together.

Proposition 8 is running very, very close right now.

Talk to people you know. Walk up talk to strangers, if need be. Ask them very kindly to do the right thing.

Do not allow the lies and fear—spread by commercials bought with millions of dollars in out-of-state money—to talk our fellow Californians into taking away the right to marry the person one loves from our sons, our daughters, our brothers, our sisters, our friends. Please.

(It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.)

NOTE: THERE’S A VERY SHORT VERSION AT THE END in case you want to print it out.

(Thank you again to the always fabulous, Alan Mittelstaedt, and to my USC J202 students who researched the issues so intelligently and well.)

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1A High speed rail: YES

Oh, I suppose the opponents and naysayers have a point, in an Eeyore-ish sort of way. But California needs to move itself into the future, transportationally speaking. I want a bullet train. You should want a bullet train. The LA Times wants a bullet train. (Even if the Daily News doesn’t.) Yes on infrastructure. No on prisons. What kind of tomorrow do you want anyway?

2. Humane farms: YES

Prop 2 requires that caged farm animals have enough room to be able to stand up in their pens or cages, turn around—and flap their wings if they happen to have wings. In other words, we can kill ‘em and eat ‘em, but we can’t torture ‘em. It’s pretty much that simple. You’ve no doubt seen all the commercials warning you that hideous things will happen if this proposition passes. Salmonella will run rampant, California will have to get its eggs from Mexico, food prices will skyrocket. And all goodness and light will disappear from the earth. (Yes, I made that last part up. But the rest is claimed by the NO-on-2 TV ads paid for by big agribusiness.)

The facts say otherwise. First of all, confining animals to over-small spaces spreads diseases (and pathogens like salmonella) more easily between the animals, and extreme stress makes creatures additionally disease-prone. In other words, humane treatment of chickens, pigs and veal calves, et al, will make our food safer not the reverse. In terms of price, a California-based poultry economist cited by the Humane Society has figures indicating that eggs will, at most, cost a penny more (per egg). Sure, in this sucky economy, even pennies add up, but unhealthy food is never a bargain.

The LA Times says to vote no, but they’re on the wrong side of this one. My brilliant pal, LA Times columnist and KPCC radio talk show maven, Patt Morrison, who is extremely well informed on these issues, says yes—-as does a slew of other organizations beginning with the Humane Society, the Sierra Club and the California Democratic Party.

The poultry industry, in particular, has had plenty of time to reform itself—as the beef and the veal industries have pretty much already done. But poultry has failed to come into the 21st century. It seems those poultry farmers need a nice firm nudge (or peck), which Prop 2 thoughtfully provides.

3. Children’s Hospitals: YES

Do I really have to explain this? Okay, Children’s hospitals throughout the state are overflowing with seriously ill and injured children, and you will find no serious organized opposition to this proposition. There is a good reason for that.

4. Parental notification: NO

Every few years this thing gets on the ballot and then gets voted down.

For the details, see the write-ups from my USC students here.

Then listen to our state’s daughters and deep-six this puppy.

5. Rehab not prison for certain drug offenders: YES

Our prisons are crowded with nonviolent low-level drug offenders, who often cycle in and out for parole violations, not additional crimes, because they go back in every time they test dirty—or are afraid they’re going to test dirty—on the drug tests mandated by the conditions of their paroles. And we pay the tab for their inability to get off the conveyer belt. Is that really any way to run a railroad?

Prop. 36 is terming out, and this would replace it. No matter what Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown say (the latter who should know better), this proposed system is not going to send a plague of criminals running rife through the streets.

We need this initiative. It’ll save us money, and prison beds, and it will keep low level offenders in the community where they have a chance at recovery, not in prison where they are further broken—and then we and their families get to pay the tab for the damage.

The truth is, we need a state commission that can come up with binding sentencing reform, but the stage legislature is too chicken and/or politically hamstrung to authorize such a commission (because of the pressure of certain unions we could mention—cough….CCPOA….cough), so we are left with the proposition process.

(NOTE: I part with my smart USC students on this one, but their intelligent summaries are very much worth reading and, heck, you may find you agree with them, not me.)

UPDATE: WLA commenter, Reg, has just pointed out that Jeanne Woodford has endorsed Prop. 5. Woodford is the former warden of San Quentin, the former director of the California Department of Corrections, and now, post-retirement, the chief of adult probation in S.F.—and as smart as they come on corrections policy. In terms of knowledge and experience of the entire system, there can be no better endorsement.

(The rest after the jump.)

Read the rest of this entry »

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nobody I know is better informed on all things transportation-related than friend and sometimes WLA guest blogger, Alan Mittelstaedt. So I asked him to give his take on Measure R. He kindly agreed, and you’ll find the result below.

Read. And heed.

Measure R: Flawed, but forgivable – Vote Yes

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Let me see if I have this right: Measure R would place Orwellian restrictions on automobile owners. L.A. County residents would be forced to burn or bury their cars and take public transportation to work the three days a week they aren’t biking or walking. A major intrusion into your life, big, bad Measure R tosses to the side of the road any sense of fairness in government’s role in addressing traffic and air pollution.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

If any of this were true, the opposition coming from county supervisors Gloria Molina and Michael Antonovich, Singleton’s running-on-vapors San Gabriel Valley newspapers and the Bus Riders Union wouldn’t be so petty and shortsighted. Get real, folks. Clogged freeways and streets are a No. 1 threat to our health and sanity, and the measure represents the best chance in a long time to do something about it. In reality, R’s main flaws are lack of ambition and courage and failure to promote a public-transit-only spending plan. Too many road projects http://www.metro.net/measurer/project_index.html are included in a calculated way to make voters everywhere believe their neighborhood somehow will benefit.

But don’t reject Measure R because of these weaknesses. They’re a distraction and prove that R is a product of the political cowards running government at a time when we need visionaries who can plot out a mass transit system and sell it to residents, business owners and state and federal governments – all of whom must pay for it. Our plight demands inspiring leadership reaching across L.A. County’s neighborhoods into the halls of Congress and the state Legislature, but we get Measure R instead.

It’s a worthy start, but R won’t take us to our destination of car-free commuting and healthy lungs for all. All it would do is raise the sales tax by half a penny and collect anywhere from $20 billion to $40 billion over 30 years. The cost to you: about as much as six cupcakes. For $25 a year, you can help the region take small steps to catch up on several decades of lost time when we should have been building a complete network of subways and light-rail systems. Time lost by squabbling among some of the same career politicians who now disagree over whether their communities get a fair share.

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USC students Kelsey Clark, Steffi Lau, and Maria Niklas wrote about the very confusing Proposition 9, the so-called Crime Victim’s Bill of Rights. (Frankly, I thought they each did a better job in explaining the issue than the talking head who was talking about Prop. 9 on NPR station, KPCC the other day.)

After writing their stories on Prop. 9, both Kelsey and Maria decided they would vote NO on the measure, while Steffi was on the fence. Eventually she decided she would go with a YES vote.

Read what they have to say, and decide what you think.

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On this proposition, USC students Merdith Deane, Kristy Lucero, and Natasha Yasher all wrote smart explorations of the issue of drug rehab instead of incarceration for certain drug crimes. When they had concluded thier research, Meridith and Kristy decided that the proposition was a good idea in theory but too expensive and possibly poory executed. While Natasha thought it imperfect, but more benificial than not, but worried about the cost during the current economic downturn. So two recommended a NO vote, one recommend a qualified YES.

Here’s their reasoning:

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Many of my LA friends and neighbors are in swing states right now, going door to door for Barack Obama. Even my pal, notorious campaign curmudgeon and blogfather, Marc Cooper, is in Nevada canvassing.

For a variety of reasons, however, I am compelled to remain in California.

So instead of door knocking, I’ve spent all my spare moments in the last few days dialing perspective voters. My swing state of choice for these chipper-voiced human robo calls is the three-electoral vote state of Montana, which used to be a red state, then last week it turned pink. Now it’s white (or yellow, depending upon the color-coded map you favor).

Yeah, yeah, Ohio or Pennsylvania or Florida are a lot more important from an electoral college perspective, but I know Montana. My mother was raised there. My Republican grandfather was a state senator. My parents dragged my brother and me to the Big Sky state almost every summer of our collective childhood, and I brought my own son to fish and float the Middle Fork of the Flathead River in West Glacier, Montana, nearly every August since before he could walk.

So when I use the brilliantly-designed voter-calling software at MyBarackObama.com, to make my calls to Great Falls or Butte or Helena or Kalispell, I can picture the place. Plus I’m familiar with Montanan’s concerns. In the course of my calls, I’ve had conversations about Obama’s stand on gun rights and, with one college football fan, I did my best to converse about the merits of rooting for the U of Montana Grizzlies, who are second ranked behind those irritating Weber State Wildcats.

But, although most I dialed already had their candidate in mind, I have run into several honest-to-goodness undecideds, and even turned one, that I know of. In truth, she was just looking for someone to give her a light tap in the Obama direction, which I helpfully provided. (“So, let’s talk about what you like and don’t like about both candidates, okay?” You alright with that?” I said in my friendliest Mrs. Rogers voice. Yes, she said, she was alright with it.)

Whatever the leanings of those who picked up the phone, I have found many of these stranger-to-stranger conversations to be weirdly touching. We Americans are, at heart, a decent and sensible people, a fact that these calls have verified for me over and over.

A few examples:

Today, I spoke to a 50-something woman, who lives with her husband in Billings Montana. “We’re lifelong Republicans,” she said, “but we’ve already voted, and we voted for Obama.” I asked her what convinced her to switch. “Well, frankly, usually, we think Democrats tend to overspend on social programs,” she said, and she explained that she worked for social services where she felt she saw lots of abuse of the public assistance system. “But right now the country’s in such a mess…We just need a change. So we voted for the man, not the party.”

Was it hard to cross over? I asked. “Not at all,” she said. “The choice is pretty clear.”

I thought so too, I said. We wished each other luck. And I hung up.

A few calls later, I spoke to 80-year old Ruth who lives in Libby, Montana, which means she’s surrounded by hardcore McCain people, she said. Ruth told me she was on the fence for months and months until she heard Maya Angelou being interviewed on the subject of presidential candidates. And in listening to Angelou, somehow she just “got it,” Ruth said, that Obama cared about the Americans that most other politicians seemed barely to notice. And she also felt good about voting for the candidate that was giving hope to young people the age of her grand kids. “It feels like the right thing to do,,” she said.

So was she sure of her vote? I asked, or still a little wobbly?

“No I’m sure,” Ruth said. “Once I saw it, I saw it. I want the young people to feel like they have hope.”

Me too, I said. Me too.

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This is, by the way, cross posted at Huff Post

LAST WEEK I ASSIGNED some of my smart USC students to each write a 300-word news story explaining one of the propositions that will appear on the California ballot on Tuesday.

Below you’ll find clips from the resulting commentaries, with still more to come tomorrow.

(USC student Holly Villamagna’s assessment of Prop. 11, posted earlier, may be found here.)

ALSO TOMORROW, A FULL LIST OF ENDORSEMENTS.

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first…PROP. 6

Proposition 6 is a 30-page monster that is arguably the worst thing on the November 4 ballot—even worse, in some ways, than the loathsome Prop. 8 because the social and fiscal razor-blades it contains are so perniciously disguised.

When students, Sarah Eigner, Dina Diaz, and Chelsea Dunlap, researched the issue, they got quickly to the heart of the complicated and deceivingly written proposition (and they did it with out any nudging or cues from me).

Here’s what they wrote:

Read the rest of this entry »

We all understand that moving ahead quickly on issues of renewable energy issue is essential. But is the well-intentioned but dreadfully written Prop. 7 the way to go?

Soojin Yoon and Rachel Geragos chose to examine this issue and each concluded that Prop 7 should be a big NO Vote:

Rachel Geragos observed that, “Those who are for Proposition 7….want to see California become a world leader in clean power technology and to help ceate a solution for wiring energy costs…”

But, she wrote, the pricey proposition was created and paid for almost entirely by out-of-state “billionaire Peter Sperling from Arizona,” while opposed by a long list of California organizations—from renewable energy providers to taxpayer groups and all major environmental organizations.

And here’s Soojin Yoon wrote about Prop. 7:

To what lengths are Californians willing to go to increase the quantity of renewable energy sources in the state?

Come November 4th, there will be a definitive answer as voters cast their choice for or against Proposition 7.

The proposed measure would require Californian utility companies to generate a certain portion of their power from renewable energy sources, with a goal of 50% renewable energy generated by the year 2025. Those companies failing to comply with benchmarks set in place would be subject to penalties. Additionally, some jurisdiction over such utilities would be transferred from the Public Utilities Commission to the Energy Comission.

Proponents for this ballot measure see this as a great opportunity to assert California as a leader in clean power technology. Additionally, there would be many new jobs created by Proposition 7, which would be a nice boost to the sagging economy. Further, the proposal allows for the state to help set the pace for the goal of 50% renewable energy by the year 2025 set by the federal government. To boot, proponents claim that the plan meets environmental protection standards.

Meanwhile, detractors have come out from across the state to voice their strong displeasure for the initiative.

Read the rest of this entry »

Marin Austine, Michelle LaRue and Charlotte Bergin chose Proposition 4, the proposed parental consent law.

After researching the pros and cons, all three came down very firmly against the measure.

(NOTE: Californians: Listen to your daughters on this issue.)

Here’s what they had to say:

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