The political battle now in CA

As a quasi-disinterested political observer, I find this story fascinating. What I find heartening in California's story, like the year's big national political stories--Bush's push on Social Security, the threat to end fillibusters in the Senate, and the heartwarming display of concern for Terry Schiavo--isn't necessarily that our side is winning but that the ideological battle is finally being fought out in the open. Rethuglican rulers have to figure out how to move beyond demonizing people who fail to support the Iraq adventure. And the political fronts they're opening make it pretty easy to see what these guys want government to look like, and what that'll mean for people who vote for them. Not everyone knows the difference between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but a lot of Red Staters who vote Republican are kind of counting on that Social Security money (Wal-Mart not being known for generosity with the 401(k) benefit). Of course, the Rethugs are still lying about their intentions, but at least some of the big media are willing to start asking questions about the "reforms" being proposed and observe how the polling numbers move when people begin to find out more about those proposals. (Ruy Texeira, whom I haven't been reading a lot since the election, has a lot of data on polls the past three months.)