I ran into a local political consultant last night, and we had an amusing–if not particularly on-topic–conversation. A couple items of idle speculation came up that I think were interesting. (Disclaimer: all the following is speculation and should be treated for what it was: late-night bar chit-chat. As they say in the movies, several margaritas gave their life for the creation of these rumors).

Like all San Francisco political junkies, we discussed Gavin’s future. Despite his people’s protestations to the contrary (and notice that it’s always his spokespeople who make the denial, never him), Newsom’s logical next step is to run for Governor. This consultant speculated that Gavin was waiting to see to see what the special election does to Arnold’s chances. If Arnold comes out of the November election strengthened, Gavin will hold off, with an eye to 2010. If Arnold is weakened, Gavin can come sweeping in and claim he’s there to rescue the Democratic Party (claiming Angelides’s lack of charisma, low name recognition, etc.). It’s a no-risk, high reward situation for Gavin.

We also talked a little about whether Arnold will try to call off the Special Election, and what his strategy will be. I’ve said before that I don’t think he’ll call off the election, and I still think that’s the case. I do, however, think I have an idea of what his strategy will be to salvage what he can out of the election:

I think that in September, Schwarzenegger will look at the initiatives which are most identified with him: 74 (Teacher tenure), 76 (Budget spending cap), and 77 (redistricting, assuming it gets put back on the ballot). He’ll choose the one that is doing best in the polls and push that one exclusively, counting on the media to conveniently forget that he put forward the other propositions as well. If the one proposition he pushes wins, he’ll be able to point to that as a victory, and the media will hail him as the “comeback kid”. It’s an easier story to write that “Arnold put all his political clout into Proposition 76 (or whatever) and he won.” than to write “Arnold won on Proposition 74, but we have to take into account that he abandoned Proposition 76, and 77 was pulled from the ballot and the union thing lost…”. And the media tends to put things simply, often at the expense of depth or nuance.

One final note about Proposition 75, the Paycheck Deception Act: Arnold has not endorsed this Proposition, even though he has been consistently getting his ass kicked by unions ever since he was elected. He’s given a bunch of reasons for not supporting it, including wanting to strike a deal with labor, but I think the real reason is that he thinks it’s going to lose. Frankly, it’s pretty much a victory for him and his big-business cronies whether it passes or not, since labor will have to spend a huge amount of money and effort to defeat it, which will make it difficult for them to have as much influence in 2006.