Experts Expound

“An initiative to legalize marijuana has qualified for the November ballot. Aside from whether it passes, will this issue play a major role in this year’s race for governor or Senate?”

Only if Meg Whitman or the Rep Senate candidate is caught smoking it at the Voyeur Club this fall…

No, politicians care a lot more about law enforcement endorsements than they do about occasional voters sitting on their couches eating Cheetos and watching “Pineapple Express.”
Only if DeVore gets a break in the polls. He is vulnerable on pot given his pro-hemp legislation.

Fearful of being “soft on crime,” all candidates will oppose.

Marijuana won’t be an issue in The Guber race unless one of two things happens: The media creates it as an issue or Jerry Brown gets spotted smoking a ‘J’ with some aging Hollywood hipster.

No, it’s not going to be a defining issue in either race. Anyone who thinks it will be is smoking something. The voters legalized medicinal marijuana 14 years ago, and attitudes have generally become much more permissive since then. Although both major party candidates in both races will probably feel compelled to oppose the measure.

I doubt it, support is probably going to more or less track along with party registration anyway.

Will the supporters of the initiative remember what position the candidates take on the thing?

It will be fun to watch candidates take positions on the initiative – they will have to answer questions about the conflicts with federal law.  Given the need to reduce prison costs this is actually a very important issue – let the low level drug cases out and keep the pedophiles in lock up.

It’ll be an issue of major importance to a handful of goofballs who actually don’t trust anyone who smokes pot — even if it last happened in the sixties!

The older, conservative, traditional values types who’ll vote No are high propensity voters anyway, so its not likely this draws more of them to the election. However, it may well attract significant numbers of younger, more socially liberal  people – less likely voters – who might otherwise have not cared enough to show up and vote. If that happens, it’s at least a minor uptick for Democrats.

No. As one well-known campaign guy once said, it’s the economy, stupid!

No. No major candidate will be in favor of it.

Nope.  The people with the strongest interest in the issue will forget to vote.

Dope??? Nope!!!

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