Grand Theft by Ballot Initiative - Vote No on the California Tobacco Tax
Long time no post. It's the resident machiavellian power grabbing author back at ya' after an extended absence from the keyboard. I've got this crazy notion that we smokers should kind of band together in a mutual self-defense circle by voting for candidates who go easy on us with the taxes and restrictions. We should be courteous and watch the litter and not blow smoke into anyones face (including fellow smokers) but aside from that, I think the world should just leave us the hell alone.
Livejournal is an interesting alternative to Facebook and it seems like there are people from everywhere on these Communities. I'm wondering how many of you emanate from California. Sometimes it seems like everyone is either in California now, or was there, or knows Susie or Ken from Cali. There were 11 million when I was born here, there are 38 million now. I'm not at all sure now that I would go along with The More the Merrier anymore, but what the heck whadya' gonna' do? The weather in the Southern half is simply marvelous. San Diego has nearly perfect weather. It gets a bit chilly in February, but you can always drive about 100 miles south into Baja California (Mexico) and solve that problem.
OK. Here's the deal. A very angry and creepy professor from the University of San Francisco who has a huge, unhealthy lifetime obsession with terminating smoking is working the marionettes from overhead to try an squeeze another dollar a pack out of California smokers. We kicked in $905,000,000 to the state treasury just last year and got a bunch of really stupid and ineffectual television/radio PSA's out of it. Some of the money went to actor Rob Reiners pet project called First 5. He fleeced us with that ballot proposition in 1998.
Nailing us is a political slam dunk. It is 85 against 15 going into the fray to start with. I'm surprised they haven't stuck us with the entire state budget by now. But something amazing happens sometimes. People who don't smoke actually get a twinge of guilt at ganging up on a captive, out-of-favor minority and vote some of these down. It happened in 2006. Rob Reiner barely eked out 50.01% with his heist.
Anyway, mad political scientist/smoker/amateur mathematician that I am, I'm going to bore you with some numerical predictions here and ask to you help vote this Proposition down.
Here's the boring numbers and predictions:
Using past June California primary elections as a guide and applying some of my own homegrown mathematical adjusters, I predict that roughly 5,400,000 will show up on June 5th. The Republican primary has lost its significance now that Romney has prevailed. It would have helped us if the race was still undecided.
There are about 4 million smokers in California.
The magic number is 2,700,001 No votes for the win. If motivated smokers turnout at 50% above the average June primary rate of 30% and a 45% turnout materializes, we’ve got 1,727,550 smoker voters to work with. Let’s say that 80% vote No and, unbelievably, the remainder masochistically vote Yes. That gives us 1,382,100 No votes. We still need 1,318,000 non-smokers for the win.
This represents 36% of the non-smoking electorate or a little over one-in-three. California now has a 60-40 progressive slant. We need to peel off some of their votes along with some stray RINO Republicans to pull this off. It will be close. Every vote counts.
Incidentally, the 1,382,100 smokers voting No would represent about 40% of the overall California tobacco community. Do you think we can get 4 out of 10, in other words a minority within a minority, to step up to the plate? If not, there is no hope for any of us. We are doomed ultimately to outright criminalization for the mere possession of tobacco.
Pass this on to anyone you know who lives in Cali. If you live there personally, by all means set aside some time on Tuesday, June the 5th and go down and vote. Don't sit this one out. And just one more thing. Talk to your friends who don't smoke, particularly if they're of the progressive persuasion (California has been super progressive voting since the 90's) and ask them to vote No on Prop 29.
When you type "No on Prop 29" into a search engine you'll find a lot of editorials and opinions on this. Not one single solitary one I could find was authored by a smoker, except for mine. If you'd like to read how I am reaching out to the progressive, non-smoking California voter click on my avatar and go from there.
Livejournal is an interesting alternative to Facebook and it seems like there are people from everywhere on these Communities. I'm wondering how many of you emanate from California. Sometimes it seems like everyone is either in California now, or was there, or knows Susie or Ken from Cali. There were 11 million when I was born here, there are 38 million now. I'm not at all sure now that I would go along with The More the Merrier anymore, but what the heck whadya' gonna' do? The weather in the Southern half is simply marvelous. San Diego has nearly perfect weather. It gets a bit chilly in February, but you can always drive about 100 miles south into Baja California (Mexico) and solve that problem.
OK. Here's the deal. A very angry and creepy professor from the University of San Francisco who has a huge, unhealthy lifetime obsession with terminating smoking is working the marionettes from overhead to try an squeeze another dollar a pack out of California smokers. We kicked in $905,000,000 to the state treasury just last year and got a bunch of really stupid and ineffectual television/radio PSA's out of it. Some of the money went to actor Rob Reiners pet project called First 5. He fleeced us with that ballot proposition in 1998.
Nailing us is a political slam dunk. It is 85 against 15 going into the fray to start with. I'm surprised they haven't stuck us with the entire state budget by now. But something amazing happens sometimes. People who don't smoke actually get a twinge of guilt at ganging up on a captive, out-of-favor minority and vote some of these down. It happened in 2006. Rob Reiner barely eked out 50.01% with his heist.
Anyway, mad political scientist/smoker/amateur mathematician that I am, I'm going to bore you with some numerical predictions here and ask to you help vote this Proposition down.
Here's the boring numbers and predictions:
Using past June California primary elections as a guide and applying some of my own homegrown mathematical adjusters, I predict that roughly 5,400,000 will show up on June 5th. The Republican primary has lost its significance now that Romney has prevailed. It would have helped us if the race was still undecided.
There are about 4 million smokers in California.
The magic number is 2,700,001 No votes for the win. If motivated smokers turnout at 50% above the average June primary rate of 30% and a 45% turnout materializes, we’ve got 1,727,550 smoker voters to work with. Let’s say that 80% vote No and, unbelievably, the remainder masochistically vote Yes. That gives us 1,382,100 No votes. We still need 1,318,000 non-smokers for the win.
This represents 36% of the non-smoking electorate or a little over one-in-three. California now has a 60-40 progressive slant. We need to peel off some of their votes along with some stray RINO Republicans to pull this off. It will be close. Every vote counts.
Incidentally, the 1,382,100 smokers voting No would represent about 40% of the overall California tobacco community. Do you think we can get 4 out of 10, in other words a minority within a minority, to step up to the plate? If not, there is no hope for any of us. We are doomed ultimately to outright criminalization for the mere possession of tobacco.
Pass this on to anyone you know who lives in Cali. If you live there personally, by all means set aside some time on Tuesday, June the 5th and go down and vote. Don't sit this one out. And just one more thing. Talk to your friends who don't smoke, particularly if they're of the progressive persuasion (California has been super progressive voting since the 90's) and ask them to vote No on Prop 29.
When you type "No on Prop 29" into a search engine you'll find a lot of editorials and opinions on this. Not one single solitary one I could find was authored by a smoker, except for mine. If you'd like to read how I am reaching out to the progressive, non-smoking California voter click on my avatar and go from there.