One (Big) State at a Time

UPDATE: The CA death toll is now 132.

With heat-related deaths in California now exceeding 100, a new poll cited by Carl Pope shows"Air pollution, global warming and other environmental woes are becoming increasingly important to California voters" -- an unprecedented 85 percent of the voters say that the environment will influence who they vote for this fall for governor.

With those numbers, even Ahnold is an environmentalist, and since he's the sitting governor, that's not a bad thing. He's fighting the Bushites on roadless areas. But California has another of its endless propositions, this one with some real substance. Pope writes: This reality is reinforced by the fact that, in the fall, Californians will get a chance to vote to put their state on a new energy pathway -- one in which the oil industry is finally forced to pay its fair share of the cost of a transition out of our addiction to oil by funding efficiency and renewables. Proposition 87, the Clean Alternative Energy Act, is leading in the polls, 61 percent to 23 percent. And Californians for the first time overwhelmingly say they want their state to forge its own leadership path on global warming, in the absence of federal leadership.

And as Pope points out, only Democratic candidate for governor Phil Angelides supports Prop 87. Ahnold does not.