CalDemMayehm Part 1 – How the California Democratic Party Doomed Prop 5

We here at Johnny California are confounded by all this talk of a “unified” Democratic party this election season.  We’re told that Barack Obama put these self-foot-shooting-good-time-Charlies under his spell and now every Democrat in the land, except Joe Biden, exhibits a GOP-circa-’96 level of message discipline.

Out here on the left edge, we have caught not one whiff of this team spirit.  Maybe it’s because President-Elect Sen. Obama, understandably, only comes to California for ATM withdrawals and doesn’t hang out long enough to mold the party in his image, or maybe he knows that unifying the CalDems is like trying build a wall of Jell-0 with his nails.  Whatever the case, the CalDems of 2008 are still acting like…well, they’re acting like Democrats.

Let’s start with the Prop. 5 debacle.  The CalDems endorsed Prop. 5. Shortly thereafter, all-but-certain 2010 gubernatorial candidates Sen. Diane Feinstein and A.G. Jerry Brown dissed the party, sided with the  Correctional Officer’s Union and started campaigning against 5.

Over the past couple of weeks, Sen. Di-Fi hit the home theater circuit as the star of the  “No-On-5″ TV ads and A.G. Brown appeared at the Governorpalooza-No-On-5-photo-op.  Registered Democrats were receiving Yes-On-5 calls from CalDem phone bankers and then watching the state’s party leaders on TV urging a “No” vote.  Prop. 5 is doomed.

Did the state party fail to take Sen. Feinstein and A.G. Brown’s temperature on this one?  We’d like to think that there was some kind of coordinated Dick Morris-ian long game strategy behind this, but that would be giving the state party far too much credit.

Don’t get us wrong, we still hope that everyone votes YES on 5, but we don’t think it’s gonna make it.  A High-Prop-Five to Arianna Huffington’s spirited endorsement of the measure and for shining a moonbeam on Jerry Brown’s hackery.

Coming soon in our series of CalDemMayhem…the impending Prop. 8 disaster. Gulp.  Stay tuned…