Still Trickstin'

The forces trying to put the Dirty Tricks Initiative on the June ballot in California had a deadline of November 29 to gather signatures. That has passed and they still need signatures and money, but somehow the movement rages on:

Organizers had set this week as a deadline for wrapping up their petition drive, but said they had not raised the roughly $2 million needed to pay petition circulators. Secretary of State Debra Bowen had recommended a deadline of Nov. 29.

Campaign manager Dave Gilliard said that agents would work through the weekend to obtain the 434,000 valid signatures required to put the Electoral College initiative on next June's ballot and that he expected to submit the names by midweek.

Gilliard was less than certain that he would reach his goal of 700,000 names, a number allowing leeway for signatures that might be disqualified.

"We won't know until they're collected," he said.

Man, the whole initiative structure in California is weird. Bowen RECOMMENDED a deadline? Does that have any force of law? Guess not.

Initiative backers are already floating that they'll push off efforts to November, which would be fantastic, because it wouldn't come close to passing compared to catching everyone napping in a low-turnout June election. So obviously there's a lot of weakness here.

My favorite part was at the very end:

The idea of altering California's system has been discussed within Republican circles for years.

It became so serious in the 2004 campaign that California Republicans approached the Republican National Committee about it.

But the GOP and President Bush's political team concluded that Bush could win the election without the added boost that such a move would bring.

Even the BUSH campaign thought this idea was too hot to handle. Soon, these chumps will find out the same thing.