Uneasy Rhetoric

Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law two important bills. One requires paper trails for electronic voting and the other resets California’s primary election back to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June.

California becomes one of 17 states requiring a paper trail, but is too late for this election, which, at least for the president, may be one of the closest we’ve seen, although probably not in California. Nevada, one of the toss-up states in this election, is the only state that will be requiring them in 2004.

Returning California’s primary election to June is a good move. The argument for an earlier primary stems from a desire to be “influential” during the primary elections.

Who says California isn’t influential? If you believe that money in politics buys influence, then California is one of the most influential states in any presidential election. Just because we can’t cast our votes early enough to be in the TV news doesn’t mean we don’t help pick a candidate.

Candidates need money. The candidate with the most money will not always win, but in a presidential election, a candidate needs enough money to build a staff that can get his name out there and convince voters that he is a serious enough candidate to win. Kerry needed California to run his campaign. Dean’s campaign would have been another Kucinich (read: voice crying in the wilderness) without California. Candidates will always pay attention to California, and will always visit California, no matter when we hold our primary.

It’s tempting to say that California can console itself that it holds supreme influence during the general election because it has so many electoral votes, but as we saw in the last election, and as we are seeing in this one, California’s influence has been minimized by a whole sea of red states just west of the Mississippi, anchored by Texas. (It is safe to say that California is vital to a Democratic win, but of marginal interest to Republicans, at least for now.)

The most influential states in this election will be smaller states with more divided populations. Nevada may decide this election, and Californians can influence what happens in Nevada just by driving two or three hours and spending an afternoon going door-to-door.