California is backing away from the Super Tuesday idea of competing with other states for candidates' attention. The overwhelmingly Democratic stamping ground has moved its presidential primary to June via Assembly Bill 80. What is behind this move?
* Running a Super Tuesday primary has cost the Golden State dearly. Reuters reveals the Feb. 5, 2008, presidential primary came with an almost $100 million price tag. Since 24 other states were doing the same thing, California lost out on what could have been a hotly embattled battleground experience -- complete with revenue infusions.
* Assembly Bill 80 -- the brain child of Assemblyman Paul Fong, D-Mountain View -- legislatively changes the presidential primary date to the Tuesday after the first Monday in June. This schedules the up and coming presidential primary for June 5, 2012.
* California is considered a largely Democratic state. The last time it voted for the Republican contender was the 1988 presidential election that saw George H.W. Bush square off against Michael Dukakis. The U.S. Election Atlas shows Bush garnered 51.13 percent of California's votes, while Dukakis came in with only 47.56 percent. Since then, the state has voted in favor of Democratic candidates. This makes the state a premier stomping ground for Democrats, if there are plenty of contenders, but not so much in a re-election year, when the choice for Democratic presidential candidate is well-established.
* The experiment to compete for election dollars, high profile candidate appearances and perhaps also an increase in political clout has failed. In addition, it hobbled the state's ability to conduct its own business. For example, the Feb. 5 primary election saw 9.1 million Californians heading for the polls. The Public Policy Institute of California translates this to mean that the contentious election mobilized 58 percent of the 15.7 million registered voters. Fast forward to June, 2008 and it becomes clear that local and state elections were adversely affected by voter apathy. Propositions, offices and state primaries only enticed 22.4 percent of California voters to come back out and cast their ballots.
* When Gov. Brown signed AB 80 on Friday, he ended California's race for more political power and effectively resigned the Golden State to once again be a major fundraising stamping ground -- but little else. Although -- as pointed out by the San Francisco Chronicle -- there were three dissenting senate Republicans, all other lawmakers were on board with the bill.
While this limits the choice of California voters -- plenty of would-be candidates drop out after the early primaries -- it does save the state money; and the latter is in short supply right now.
Sylvia Cochran is a Los Angeles area resident with a firm finger on the pulse of California politics. Talk radio junkie, community volunteer and politically independent, she scrutinizes the good and the bad from both sides of the political aisle.
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