CAMPAIGN TALK : A Weekly Window on the California Elections.

INTELLIGENCE

Animal house: Watch your mail, Democrats.

You may soon get an official-looking slate mailer called the “Democrat Voter Guide.” It can be identified by the use of the Democratic donkey as a logo.

Or, you may get an official-looking slate mailer from the California Democratic Party. It is identified with the golden bear logo.

The donkey slate is the product of the Westside Waxman-Berman political organization. It recommends Dianne Feinstein for governor and John Garamendi for insurance commissioner. The golden bear slate comes from Democratic Chairman Edmund G. Brown Jr. and supports the candidates who won the party endorsement, John K. Van de Kamp for governor and Bill Press for insurance commissioner.

Ratings wreck: If further evidence was needed that the public is paying little attention to the Democratic primary for state attorney general, consider the recent appearance of candidates Ira Reiner and Arlo Smith on KRON-TV in San Francisco.

When “California This Week” began Sunday morning, about 35,000 Bay Area households were tuned in. By the end of the 30-minute broadcast, viewership had plummeted to about 12,000 households. It was the biggest rating drop in the program’s two-year history.

“No one has ever taken us down as far as the show with Ira and Arlo,” said producer Peter Shaplen. “The audience voted with their wrists, they turned the dial. . . . They clearly said a pox on both the candidates.”

Deja vu: Voters will be excused if Proposition 120 on the June 5 ballot sounds like something they’ve read before. It’s probably because they have. The measure, which seeks approval of a $450-million bond issue for prison construction, is the latest in a series of such measures. Regular as clockwork, four similar prison bonds were put before state voters in the 1980s. For those who have lost track, the long-term state government debt approved through the previous prison bonds totals more than $2 billion.

VOTER AFFILIATIONS

Democrats and Republicans make up the lion’s share of California voters, with just under 50% saying they are Democrats and 39% saying they are Republicans. But more than a quarter of a million people identify themselves as something else. Here’s a look at those other voters. (Percentage of total electorate in parenthesis) American Independent: (1.7%) Libertarian: (.36%) Peace and Freedom: (.34%) Miscellaneous: (.20%) Note: 1,204,886 California voters, or 8.97% of the total number of voters in the state, decline to state their party affiliation.

Source: Secretary of State

SOUNDINGS

From Sen. Marian Bergeson, complaining about Sen. John Seymour, her opponent for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor:

“One of John’s commercials states as fact that he is the ‘author of some of California’s toughest laws.’ What the advertisement does not say is that two of the bills he wrote are not laws on the books today.”

From Sen. Seymour, answering Sen. Bergeson’s complaint:

“To the person on the street, a law or a bill all means the same. They see no difference.”

From state Treasurer Thomas Hayes, cautioning voters about long-term debt and bond measures on the ballot:

“I’m saying that they shouldn’t pass everything in front of them.”

EXIT LINE

“California is a state that lacks a political gyroscope, a state that swings and sways, spins and turns in accordance with its own peculiar dynamics.”

--Carey McWilliams, in his seminal 1949 book, “California: the Great Exception.”