Politics Chat - April 29, 2008

Union-Tribune politics writer John Marelius answered questions from readers during a Tuesday morning chat session at uniontrib.com/chat.

johnmarelius(P) Hillary Clinton wins Pennsylvania; not much changes. Rev. Jeremiah Wright trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame. Presidential candidates actually debate a real issue -- gasoline taxes. Lots to talk about. Let's get started.

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diego72(Q) Do you think Obama's pastor is helping or hurting him? Or is this an issue that voters don't care about?

johnmarelius(A) Rev. Wright is clearly not doing Obama any good and doesn't much seem to care. So far, the controversy doesn't seem to be moving numbers in polls. The question we can't answer yet is if Obama is the nominee, will this make it harder for him to appeal to working-class white voters that he's having a hard time with anyway.

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diego72(Q) Do you think Clinton's Pa. win will help convince superdelegates to move her way?

johnmarelius(A) It hasn't yet -- certainly not in the numbers she needs. Up next are North Carolina and Indiana next Tuesday.Obama leads by 10 points in the latest poll in North Carolina. His double-digit lead there has been pretty steady. Clinton leads Indiana by 5 points, down from 9 a few weeks ago. She probably can't afford to lose Indiana, since she'll probably lose North Carolina. Obama has something of a home court advantage in Indiana because the northwestern portion of the state is in the Chicago media market.

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diego72(Q) Is anyone buying that she has more votes than Obama?

johnmarelius(A) She can argue she has the most votes, but only if you include Florida and Michigan -- which, obviously, are very much in dispute with no resolution in sight.

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johnmarelius(P) A quick afterthought on Rev. Wright: I was struck by what I saw on television of his press conference yesterday. You would have expected him to have been angry and defensive. He wasn't. He was plainly having fun, which would seem to indicate that he's not going away any time soon.

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diego72(Q) I know you are not an economist, but what do you think about proposals to eliminate the gas tax? To me it seems pointless since it will remove much needed money from road and highway construction/repair. Also, it seems a like band aid that doesn't address what is really causing gas prices to spike.

johnmarelius(A) That's clearly Sen. Obama's argument. I've got a copy of his North Carolina speech today in which he says: "We're arguing over a gimmick that would save you half a tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say they did something." John McCain first proposed the gas-tax holiday, but didn't make up for the lost revenue. Hillary Clinton supports it but would make up for the revenue with one of Democrats' favorite free lunches -- a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

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Peter(Q) What are the chances of the Dems taking the 80th and 78th ADs? Don't they both have larger number of Dems than Reps, and aren't they both currently held by Reps who can't run again?

johnmarelius(A) Wow! A question about legislative campaigns. You're quite right that both districts were drawn to favor Democrats in 2001, but wound up electing Republicans -- Shirley Horton and Bonnie Garcia -- the next year. (Just as an aside, the Legislature did such an effective job of gerrymandering that those are the only two Assembly districts that have changed parties this entire decade). I'm much more familiar with the lay of the land in the 78th, so I'll address that. I think Democrats have a good chance to pick it up, depending upon who they nominate. Horton barely squeaked through in 2002 and 2004. She won by a more comfortable margin in 2006 -- close to 5 points if my memory serves me correctly -- but she had Arnold Schwarzenegger at the top of the ticket. This year, of course, the presidential nominees will be at the top of the ticket. We can't yet predict how well the Democrtic nominee will do in that district, but we can safely assume it will be a lot better than Phil Angelides did.

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diego72(Q) Do you think a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage will make it onto the Nov. ballot? If so, what are its chances of passage?

johnmarelius(A) Sponsors believe they have collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but it will take county registrars awhile to verify them. As to whether it passes is hard to say. Proposition 22, which was a statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman, passed with 61% of the vote in 2000. A Field Poll a few years later showed opposition to same-sex marriage at 51%. So attitudes are changing gradually. It's unclear whether because the current initiative is a constitutional amendment, that might cause voters to view it differently.

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Peter(Q) I got an email from a Dem activist who claims that one of the Dems, Arabo, is actually a Rep who re-registered just to run in this race. And that he is raising a bunch of money from liquor store owners because he lobbied for liquor and tobacco companies. That seems a little over the top...what's the scoop?

johnmarelius(A) Arabo is a former Republican. Whether he changed his registration just to run for the 78th District seat, I don't know. He heads a trade association of convenience stores and has lobbied against some tobacco ordinances. Six months ago when Arabo first emerged, I was hearing rumblings that some Democrats found his partisan credentials suspect. But he has lined up a pretty impressive list of Democratic endorsements starting with Speaker Fabian Nunez.

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Peter(Q) (Not to be nit-picky, but I lived in Palm Springs, and I'm pretty sure that the 80th did not change parties as you suggested...I thikn we had Dave Kelly before Bonne Garcia.)

johnmarelius(A) I think we're both right. Redistricting changed the district to cover Imperial County and part of Riverside County. Before redistricting in 2001, I believe the 80th District was actually represented by Denise Ducheny and covered southern San Diego County and Imperial County.

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Peter(Q) Since you mentioned redistricting, do you think yet another redistricting reform initiative has any chance? And if so, what makes this one different? (Despite a lot of babbble from the politicians, I never hear anyone else talking about it as an issue.)

johnmarelius(A) I think there's a growing public awareness of the issue. Still, it's hard to get enough voters to care. People tend to vote no on propositions they don't understand and don't care about. The current initiative is different from past attempts in a couple of ways. It creates a citizens commission to draw the lines for the Legislature, but leaves it to the Legislature to redraw congressional boundaries. This was largely an attempt to mollify Nancy Pelosi who threatened to spend boatloads of money to defeat it if it included Congress.

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Peter(Q) Okay I'm bored at work and took to the google challenge on the question about the 80th AD. I came up with this: http://swdb.berkeley.edu/info/caljournallinks/assembly.html#A80 which seems to indicate that Ducheny (who repersented the 79th AD), did not go into Imperial County. What do I win??? :-)

johnmarelius(A) You need to get a more fulfilling job. My recollection is that before 2001 Ducheny represented the 80th District which went into Imperial and that Juan Vargas had the 79th. I'll check the Berkeley Statewide Datatbase website when I have time and we can continue this scintillating discussion next time if you're still bored.

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Peter(Q) Great answers on the questions Mr. Marelius! (I'd never heard the Pelosi redistricting thing!) Thanks!

johnmarelius(A) Come back any time. You provided a nice break from Rev. Wright. But we're out of time for this week. Thanks a lot.

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