Because Nate Silver won’t respond to the saucy love letters we keep sending him, we’ve had to resort to this to get his attention: a statistical analysis of endorsements for Tuesday’s election. (BTW: There’s an election on Tuesday.)
We combed through every major endorsement we could find — about seventy — and charted out who was saying yes and who was saying no. We counted newspapers like the LA Times and Sacramento Bee, professional groups like the CA Medical Association, politicians like Gray Davis (bless his heart), and even Tom McClintock (conservative), Meg Whitman (opposed to gay people), and The East Bay Express (loiterers). Did we miss anyone? Check out the full list of endorsements that we consulted, and let us know who we left out.
We did not count SF Weekly and the SF Examiner because we couldn’t find any evidence of their endorsements online. Enjoy your early retirement, newspapermen!
So, what did we discover? VERY LITTLE. In general, opinions on measures 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, and 1F are spread into a grey goo. Some folks oppose all; some folks oppose none; and most everyone is pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Politics! (Also, bear in mind that since this analysis is based almost entirely on our ability to Google, the margin of error is plus or minus one hundred percent.)
Of the endorsements we found, Prop 1F (which would withhold pay raises from legislators until they pass a budget) enjoys the only majority support, and also the fewest detractors. It also has the largest number of neutrals. Prop 1A (temporary tax hike) has a near-majority of supporters, and also the fewest ambivalent endorsements. Prop 1B (retools how money gets spent on education) has fewer detractors than most other measures. Prop 1G, which does not exist, is the only measure with unanimous support.
Ugh. We’ve spent hours on this now and we still have no idea how we should actually vote, if at all. The only endorsement we can distill out of this data is that it is pretty safe to have no strong feelings one way or another about any of this.
But if you really want to make sense of these endorsements, here’s what you should do: check out our full list of all the endorsements we could find. Find five to ten groups that you know you trust. Look at their recommendations, and ignore everyone else. So much of politics, after all, is figuring out who to ignore. (Protip: everyone.)
Whose Endorsements We Consulted:
SF Chronicle
LGBT Legislative Caucus
California Teachers Association
California Chamber of Commerce
California Farm Bureau Foundation
California Retailers Association
Bay Area Council
California Peace Officers Association
California NAACP
State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 2620
CA League of Conservation Voters
CA Teachers Association
California Alliance for Jobs
California Forward
East Bay Express
CA Attorney General Jerry Brown
LA Mayor Villaraigosa
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnon
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed
Gray Davis
SF Planning and Urban Research
CA Taxpayers’ Association
LA Times
Sacramento Bee
CA Democratic Party
San Jose Mercury News
California Medical Association
Contra Costa Times
Oakland Tribune
San Francisco Women’s Political Committee
Preschool California
CA Board of Regents
LA County Democratic Party
California Labor Federation
Dianne Feinstein
Anti-Gay Activist Meg Whitman
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
CA Psychiatric Association
CA Psychological Association
CA SEIU
Oakland Democratic Club
California Budget Project
Republican Party
Gavin Newsom
Stonewall Democrats
Conservative Rep Tom McClintock
Health Access
Health Access California
CA Federation of Teachers
League of Women Voters
Libertarian Party
SF Young Democrats
Friends Committee on Legislation
SF Bay Guardian
SF League of Pissed off Voters
State, County, and Municipal Employees, state council
California Nurses Foundation
Courage Campaign
CA Nurses Association
CREDO Mobile
Calitics
Contra Costa Taxpayer
Green Party
Peace and Freedom Party
CA Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner
