First there are the state’s editorial writers. In October, the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College conducted a survey on Proposition 77, the redistricting measure, and found that it would lose badly. An interesting sidelight; they asked voters, do you recall any newspaper editorials on this measure. Almost no one did. And yet Proposition 77 had the support of every major newspaper in California, in fact 45 papers statewide supported the measure, only three papers opposed it. It went down in flames. Guess they don’t teach people how to read editorials in school any more.

The same thing happened with Proposition 75, union dues, which had the support of a majority of California newspapers, including usually liberal newspapers like the Los Angeles Times. But the story of Proposition 75 was in the early absentee votes where it had a hefty 57 percent lead, yet it got swamped on the election day. This measure lost because the governor endorsed it.

Here we see that rare phenomenon, the Typhoid Mary factor – touch it and you infect it. Before Gov. Schwarzenegger endorsed Proposition 75 it was leading by a margin of 55 to 32 percent in the Field Poll and 48 to 33 percent in the PPIC poll. After his endorsement, it fell to a tie in PPIC and behind in Field. On election day it went down with only 46.5 percent voting yes.

The same thing happened to Proposition 73, parental notification. August polling by PPIC and Field showed this one winning; Schwarzenegger endorsed it and down it went.

When we get district by district results for his flagship initiatives, Propositions 76, budget reform, and Proposition 77, these propositions will have lost numerous Republican-held legislative districts. Had Schwarzenegger been on the ballot Tuesday, not only would Democrats have defeated him, they probably would have won more than two thirds of the seats in both the Assembly and Senate, despite California’s gerrymandered districts.

But this was a Democratic victory, not a left-wing victory. The worst showing was for the left-wing energy re-regulation initiative that got only 34.3 percent, and Proposition 79, the liberal prescription drug measure, went down with 61 percent voting no ($80 million from the pharmaceutical industry helped on this one).

The winner on Tuesday was the political center. California voters really voted for a stronger center on Tuesday. Schwarzenegger’s dalliance with the right cost them the two issues they cared about the most, but the left lost too. The question for the next few months is whether Schwarzenegger can get back to the political center. If not, Tuesday will be a prelude to an even bigger disaster in 2006.