A Reuters poll this week provides some insight into the baseline political landscape going into the fall campaign on a ballot initiative to suspend California's greenhouse-gas regulations. The survey reveals a sharp partisan split, with independents siding mostly with Democrats in their support for sustaining the law.

The question asked respondents whether they believed California's climate-change regulations will either A) "drive investment in green technology and create green jobs" or B) "will create higher energy costs and lead to cuts in traditional jobs."

Half of respondents chose A, 38 percent chose B and 12 percent weren't sure.

Given that proponents of Proposition 23 will have to elicit a yes vote on the ballot, 38 percent is not a good base to start from.

The poll reveals a significant partisan split: Democrats were divided 68-21 in their belief in the law's green-technology benefits; Republicans were split 62-21 in their concern for higher energy costs. Independents went with the green-technology argument in a 56-30 split.

As the defeats of Propositions 16 and 17 this month dramatically showed, it is nearly impossible for a single entity -- no matter how well funded -- to persuade a majority of California voters to pass a ballot measure. Voters seem to want a sense that a proposal is supported by a broad-coalition of groups that they know and trust before they're willing to vote "yes" on anything.

In that regard, proponents of Proposition 19 -- the initiative to legalize, tax and regulate the possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana -- scored a coup today by securing the endorsement of the NAACP.

The endorsement was based largely on evidence that black youths are singled out for arrest under the state's existing marijuana laws. Proponents cited a study by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice that showed 62 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession in California last year were nonwhite.

As the proposition campaigns work over the summer to build coalitions, they know that the more established an organization is, the more value it will bring to their campaign. And if you're going to include a civil rights argument as part of your campaign, there's probably no better group to have on your side than the NAACP.

Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, presented his resolution calling for a federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling off the California coast to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee today. The measure passed, but over the opposition of Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, whose district includes most of the same areas of Santa Barbara County that Nava represents.

Discussion of the resolution led to an interesting exchange between the two coastal lawmakers.

Strickland said that in talking with people in Santa Barbara he has heard, "anecdotally," that oil and tar on local beaches used to be far worse than it is today because offshore drilling has relieved pressure that previously resulted in more natural seepage of oil.

Responded Nava: "You're talking to different people than I do."

Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, presented his resolution calling for a federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling off the California coast to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee today. The measure passed, but over the opposition of Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, whose district includes most of the same areas of Santa Barbara County that Nava represents.

Discussion of the resolution led to an interesting exchange between the two coastal lawmakers.

Strickland said that in talking with people in Santa Barbara he has heard, "anecdotally," that oil and tar on local beaches used to be far worse than it is today because offshore drilling has relieved pressure that previously resulted in more natural seepage of oil.

Responded Nava: "You're talking to different people than I do."

A terrific new Web site debuted today for those who have any interest in following California's campaign for governor. It's called Politics Verbatim, a project of the nonprofit investigative reporting organization California Watch.

California Watch researchers have built a database, which they will expand as the campaign unfolds, catagorizing everything Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman have said on a range of issues in speeches, press interviews and position papers. The database goes back to statements beginning March 10.

It's searchable. Thus, if you want to know what Whitman has said about gay marriage or prisons, it's easy to find. If you want information on what Brown has said about taxes or immigration, it's just a couple of clicks away.

The days when a California candidate could get away with saying one thing about water policy when speaking to farmers in Fresno and something entirely different when speaking to environmentalists in Santa Monica are officially over.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who during the primary ran ads featuring the champion of Proposition 187, former Gov. Pete Wilson, promising that she'd be "tough as nails" on illegal immigration, now wants Latino voters to think maybe what Wilson really mean was fingernails.

Today she unveiled Spanish-language ads -- to be aired during the World Cup, no less -- that tell Latino voters that she is a "different kind" of Republican who opposed Proposition 187 and has come out against the controversial Arizona law making it a state crime for illegal immigrants to reside there.

It is the start of extensive makeover for the billionaire candidate, who pumped another $20 million into her campaign this week. Pushed by Steve Poizner, she was forced to run further to the right than she had hoped during the primary. As the new ad shows, a change in direction is in order.

One big question for the fall campaign: Will Democrat Jerry Brown and his allies have enough money to effectively remind voters that the Whitman of the summer and fall is not at all the Whitman of the spring.

The state auditor's office has narrowed the list of 4,546 applicants to serve on the Citizens Redistricting Commission to 622 finalists, including eight from Ventura County.

Looking over the applications of the eight county finalists, it appears the goal of attracting bright, diverse, everyday citizens to the commission is being met. The eight from the county include two Democrats, a Republican, a Libertarian, a Green, and three who decline-to-state a party affiliation. There are scientists, teachers, a missionary, an attorney, and a former legislative staff person who is also a demographer.

Anyone who wishes to comment on their applications may do so online at the auditor's special redistricting website, We Draw The Lines.

The auditor's office seeks to narrow the field to 120 finalists -- 40 Democrats, 40 Republicans and 40 from minor parties or decline-to-state -- by August and then begin the interviewing process. By October, it will submit 60 names (20 from each group) to the legislative leaders, who will be able to veto a combined 24. From there, a random process will select eight commissioners, who will together then select the final six members of the 14-member panel.

Here's a snapshot of the eight county finalists:

Gabino Aguirre, Santa Paula, Democrat: He is a former high school principal in the Moorpark Unified School District and a former Santa Paula city councilman. He serves on the Ventura County Commission on Human Concerns and Community Development. Supervisor Kathy Long is among those who wrote letters of recommendation.

Robert Borneman, Ventura, Green Party: An Oxnard high school teacher of American Government, he is a doctoral student in religious studies at UC Santa Barbara.

Richard Coplin, Newbury Park, decline to state: A former Verizon employee, Coplin is retired and has in recent years does extensive missionary work around the globe, including projects in Afghanistan, Cuba, Turkey and China.

Camille Marie Harris, Ventura, decline to state: A former regional manager for a national publishing company, she is an active volunteer who, among other activities, helped to form the Ventura Safe Housing Collaborative.

Clifford Lemieux, Oxnard, decline to state: A career Department of
Defense employee, he is a retired mathematician who did software programming for the Naval Air Warfare Center.

Autumn Anne Mesa, Ventura, Libertarian: An attorney who grew up in Oxnard and studied law in the San Francisco Bay Area, she was an intern at the Northern California Innocence Project while attending law school.

Henry Norton, Oak View, Republican: A retired engineer for the Navy, he served two years on the Ventura County Grand Jury and two years on the Ventura County Base Relocation Task Force.

Alan Gary Rosin, Camarillo, Democrat: A demographer who actually has experience working on redistricting challenges, he worked as a legislative staffer in the '60s, '70s and early '80s.

More surprise is being expressed than should be over Supervisor Linda Parks' resounding victory over Assemblywoman Audra Strickland on Tuesday.

Parks, a two-term incumbent, was a strong favorite from the outset, something those in the Strickland camp knew and privately acknowledged. In some ways she is to Ventura County politics what Barbara Boxer is to California politics: A consisistent winner who is consistently underrated.

Still, Parks' margin of victory was greater than most anticipated -- especially since Strickland's camp got exactly the kind of voter turnout scenario they were hoping for. Countywide, 38 percent of Republicans cast ballots on Tuesday, while only 26 percent of registered Democrats voted.

Here's a most remarkable fact: In 2006, Parks and Recreation District Commissioner Joe Gibson, with a small budget and little name recognition, got 35.7 percent of the vote in his challenge against Parks. In 2010, Strickland, a three-term legislator with a family name that has been dominant in county politics over the last decade and who was the beneficiary of a $300,000 outside campaign on her behalf from the county Republican Party, got 38.4 percent.

In other words, all that money and all that visibility allowed Strickland to pick up exactly 2.7 more percentage points than would have gone to any generic challenger.

Four observations on why that happened:

1) The county party tailored its entire advertising message to appeal to the 35 percent of voters who were already going to vote against Parks. She's been around Thousand Oaks politics for more than a decade; the minority of people who believe she's a liberal who values trees more than taxpayers didn't need any more convincing. Couldn't they at least tried to come up with some new, more sober arguments designed to appeal to people whose minds weren't already made up?

2) Rule No. 1 in trying to beat an incumbent is for a challenger to make the case that he or she would be better at the job than the person who already holds it. Even if you can persuade voters that the incumbent is not effective, you also need to persuade them that the challenger would be better. The case was never made, nor was there any apparent attempt to come up with a convincing argument.

3) Strickland didn't have nearly the reservoir of voter good will that the county party believed she had. She had underpeformed in her last two elections, and a Republican political strategist who has seen private polling over the years tells me county voters have long seen her as "a very polarizing figure." County Republican Chairman Mike Osborn spent his entire budget trying to tear down Parks, even though there was a clear need to try to build up Strickland's positives.

4) The county GOP spent $15,000 early on to pay for an alleged "poll" that was absolutely worthless. The poll did not spend enough time seeking an objective baseline assessment of the candidates, devoted almost no questions to probing Strickland's weaknesses, and served no purpose other than to inflame voters by flinging wild accusations at Parks right out of the gate.

The comments on my previous post about Ventura County Democratic Central Committee Chairman Brian Leshon's defeat were enlightening for someone what has been grasping to try to understand the source of chronic dysfunction within the county party.

A couple of observations on some of the points made in the discussion:

1) The item was meant in no way to be a personal commentary critical of Leshon. The numbers are what they are; I was simply reporting them. Personally, I have found Brian to be accessible and helpful to a reporter covering county politics. From an outsider's perspective, at least the appearance of professionalism has been higher than at some points in the past.

2) Clearly, there is a crap shoot element in the voting on central committee positions. Ballot position and ballot designation is important, but there is also an element of voter choice involved. There is no other way to read the fact that a chairman finished 7th in a field of 8 than as an indication of dissatisfaction in the ranks, justified or unjustified.

3) Democratic turnout across the state on Tuesday was abysmal; no one should suggest that the Ventura County party did any worse job than party organizations anywhere in the state. Here's what Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin wrote today in a memo about the election: "While there was not a lot for Democrats to get excited about for this election (we did not have a contested gubernatorial primary, unlike Republicans), even with the low turnout (less than 30% statewide) the electorate proved to be even more Republican than what most experts predicted. This meant even some of the most reliable Democratic voters sat this one out. This does not bode well for Democrats this November as we will need to engage the base and tell them exactly what is at stake in November and focus on motivating them to vote."

The Ventura County Democratic Central Committee could be about to get its fourth new leader in eight months. The reason? Chairman Brian Leshon of Ventura finished seventh among eight candidates running for the Central Commitee on Tuesday's ballot in the First District. Only the top six won offices.

Leshon replaced Jill Martinez in February, who replaced Joe O'Neill in August.

One potential replacement: Heather Elena Lacayo, newly elected Tuesday as the top vote-getter in the 5th District and the daughter of former chairman and nationally known party operative Hank Lacayo.

It would be quite an upset for local Assemblyman Pedro Nava to win the Democratic nomination for attorney general tonight, running in a crowded field that includes some big-city politicians from Los Angeles and San Francisco as well as the self-funded Chris Kelly, who put $12 million of his own money into the campaign.

But the first results I've seen are from Santa Barbara County, Nava's home turf. And he's winning -- 42 percent to 16 percent over San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

As you're following returns tonight and wondering how your favorite candidate is faring, here are some things to keep in mind as the early returns come in.

First, the early returns should be more meaningful than in many elections in the past. Expect that about 60 percent, or possibly higher, of the votes in Ventura County will be mail-in ballots. Assistant Registrar of Voters Tracy Saucedo told me last week that as of midday Friday about 51,000 of the 172,591 mail-in ballots that were sent to county voters had been returned. Perhaps another 10,000 likely arrived in Saturday's mail. The goal was to have all 60,000 of those ballots verified and processed by the time the polls close tonight.

(Be advised also that the downside of all those mail-in ballots is that all those that arrived in the mail yesterday and today and are dropped off at polling places won't be counted for several days. In close races, that means there will be a high number of votes that ultimately turn around a result.)

With an expected turnout of in the neighborhood of 33 percent, that means there will be about 140,000 votes cast in the county. So about 43 percent of the total vote should be counted and results reported relatively quickly. That's a pretty fair sample; if your candidate isn't at least close after those early returns are released, that will be a very bad sign.

As for specific races:

* In the 2d District race for supervisor, the county Republican Party hit the mailboxes early and often in its attacks on incumbent Linda Parks. If that strategy was effective, the evidence will show up immediately in the mail-in ballots that were cast early. Assemblywoman Audra Strickland will need to show a significant lead among those early mail-in ballots if she's going to win. It will take about 33,300 votes to win in a district in which turnout is traditionally slightly higher than in other areas of the county.

* In the sheriff's race, which is of course countywide, keep in mind that it will take about 70,000 votes to win. Use that as your yardstick. Also, keep in mind that of the election-day ballots, the last to be counted are usually those that come from Oxnard. If the race is very tight, that could be an advantage for Geoff Dean, because one of his most active supporters has been Oxnard Police Chief John Crombach.

* In the wide-open 35th Assembly District Democratic primary between Susan Jordan and Das Williams, keep in mind that Santa Barbara County's vote-counting system is generally much quicker than Ventura County's. Williams is a two-term Santa Barbara city councilman, and that county will be his strength. He'll need an early lead, because chances are fairly good that Jordan will carry Ventura County. Keep in mind that about 46 percent of the district's registered voters live in Ventura County. Because turnout in Oxnard is typically very low in primaries, however, the percentage of actual votes from Ventura County is likely to be somewhat lower than that.

* And, finally, on the statewide ballot propositions, always remember that no close contest is ever decided until Los Angeles County comes in, and it's usually about the last county to report.

An independent expenditure group called "No Louisiana in Santa Barbara" has just disclosed $40,000 in campaign spending to oppose Das Williams in the 35th Assembly District primary.

This is the group to which Assemblyman Pedro Nava -- the husband of candidate Susan Jordan -- gave $5,000 last week, then withdrew the check saying he reconsidered and decided it would be in bad form for him to get involved. Nava's involvement, however temporary, has led the Williams campaign to allege that Nava is illegally helping to coordinate activities between the independent group and his wife's campaign.

Williams has been the beneficiary of $60,000 in independent expenditures financed by Indian gaming tribes.

Following the adage that "you can always tell a man by his friends," I've long believed that one of the best measuring sticks for sizing up a ballot initiative is to take at look at who's for it and who's against it.

A new online tool put together by the Center for California Studies and Sacramento State University, the Institute of Government Studies at UC Berkeley and the Bill Lane Center for the American West makes that aspect of sizing up initiatives very easy. It lists, in an easy-to-read grid, the positions of a variety of nonprofits, unions, newspapers and political parties on the five propositions on Tuesday's ballot. Check it out here.

It is part of a larger Web site called California Choices.

A Rio School District teacher has asked District Attorney Greg Totten to investigate an alleged violation of the Education Code because the president of the local California Teachers Association chapter sent an e-mail to fellow teachers about the race for state superintendent of public instruction.

The allegation is fairly silly on its face -- teachers can sent e-mails to each other -- but the letter to Totten does provide some embarrassing information for the CTA because the e-mail is attached to it. The e-mail spills the beans about CTA's internal polling, which reveals that state Sen. Gloria Romero is leading the CTA-endorsed candidate, Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, among teachers.

The superintendent's race is virtually certain to carry over into the fall because it would be nearly impossible for any candidate to claim a majority next week because of a crowded ballot that includes three serious candidates.

The question is which two will advance to November. It would be a major embarrassment to the state's most politcally powerful union if its candidate didn't even make it to the runoff.