I was a little surprised to find a glossy campaign mailer from Governor Schwarzenegger in my mailbox yesterday, considering I don’t belong to any political party.

But then I realized why Team Arnold was targeting me: because I’m registered as “decline to state” (DTS in politicalspeak).

On today’s newsmagazine edition of The California Report, we’re taking a brief look at not only the rising number of decline-to-state voters, but also their rising importance. The latest statewide registration figures peg DTS voters at a full 18% of the registered electorate. That’s up about 5.5 percentage points since 1998, at the same time that registration keeps falling for both Republicans (35.6% in 1998, 34.8% now) and Democrats (46.7% in 1998, 42.8% now).

Everyone wants to lump decline-to-state voters into a single category… but pollsters will tell you that’s exactly the point: they don’t identify with any one label.

“They wear the title of ‘decline-to-state’ with honor,” said Mark Baldassare, polling director for the Public Policy Institute of California. “They see it as a way of defining themselves as part of the political process, but not part of the partisan gridlock, which they believe is leading to government that doesn’t work.”

The PPIC’s analysis this past summer found while more DTS voters lean Democrat (45%) than Republican (31%), the rest say they do not lean either way. That, plus their growing numbers, might be able to tip an election.

By the way, the county with the highest percentage of decline-to-state voters in California? Drumroll… San Francisco… where 28.27% are registered as DTS.

Political junkies like to play guessing games over campaign strategy. And one initiative that’s providing a lot of fodder in these final days is Proposition 77, the effort to transfer the power of political map drawing from the Legislature to a panel of retired judges.

First, there’s the strategy of the ad campaign. The Yes on 77 team was the first to strike with $2 million worth of ads last week (although campaign consultants would only confirm a week’s worth of purchased airtime). Campaign finance records show that, all told, the committees working to pass Prop 77 have raised about $7.5 million.

The No on 77 folks have raised more money… about a combined $9.2 million… but they’ve yet to take to the airwaves, even though the election is now about two-and-a-half weeks away.

There are also strategic decisions being made about “message”. The Yes on 77 campaign seems intent on trying to counter charges that the initiative is really just a “power grab” by minority Republicans.

Yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger formally endorsed State Issue 4 on the Ohio ballot this fall. Why? Possibly because State Issue 4 has been widely criticized by Ohio Republicans, who currently hold a 2-1 majority in congressional seats. Maybe standing up to Republicans, albeit out of state, will help Schwarzenegger’s polarized political image here at home.

In the end, whose strategy will work? Will Californians applaud the governor’s decision to reach across state lines as non-partisan? And for opponents of Prop 77, is their decision to hold off on a major TV ad campaign until the 11th hour a brilliant ploy, or have they waited too late?

None of this tells us much about the vagaries of redistricting, but it makes for a pretty good political parlor game.

They may have known the potential power of Latino votes all along, but both sides in the November campaign have suddenly turned their Latino PR campaigns up a notch.

This afternoon, Governor Schwarzenegger is visiting Anaheim to receive support from a group of “statewide bipartisan Latino organizations” (the quote is from his press release).

Just 17 minutes after that notice landed in my e-mail in box last night, the anti-Arnold Alliance For A Better California sent out a memo of their own, saying that La Opinion, “the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper”, is now urging a “no” vote on three of the governor’s initiatives: Proposition 74 (teachers), Proposition 75 (union dues), and Proposition 76 (budget).

The courting of Latino voters is an interesting dynamic… not only because of their growing presence in the population, but also because recent statewide polls have shown pretty small support among Latinos for the governor.

[The audio from the radio report is now online]

Some budget experts will tell you that economic forecasting is more of an art than it is a science. But if Proposition 76 passes, it might also become a political lightning rod.

That’s because the initiative largely gives the governor not only the power to predict state revenues, but also the power to assess the accuracy of that prediction. And a discrepancy could trigger a fiscal emergency… with spending cuts made either by the Legislature or the governor.

This morning on The California Report, we’re taking a look at another largely unnoticed provision of Proposition 76– the power of economic forecasting.

The initiative certainly seems to strengthen the hand of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (or any future governor) when it comes to revenue forecasting. That’s because of both what the measure says and doesn’t say.

Prop 76 says that a fiscal emergency can be declared with a deviation of at least 1.5% between forecasted and actual revenues. But it is largely silent on what figure should be used for the baseline forecast. While some budget analysts I spoke to think it could allow a governor to set the bar anywhere he or she chooses, outgoing Schwarzenegger finance director Tom Campbell says he thinks it would be the estimate now contained in the annual budget bill.

But there’s also ambiguity on what constitutes a fiscal emergency under Prop 76. Most notably, say critics, how should a “gap” between predicted and actual revenues be measured? Prop 76 doesn’t specify.

Multiple budget watchers I spoke with wondered whether the 1.5% gap (specified in 76) could be created simply by the discrepancies in cash flow from one month to the next. One budget watcher, who spoke on background because he wasn’t speaking for his boss, told me “there is a ton of play in terms of the monthly cash flow patterns.”

Regardless, the declaration of a fiscal emergency would start the clock ticking for the Legislature to resolve it. So if there’s bickering for a couple of weeks about the numbers, that’s also time lost before the governor gets to unilaterally resolve the shortfall.

The Legislative Analyst’s recent report on Prop 76 concludes that the frequency of fiscal emergencies would largely be at the discretion of the governor. But Fred Silva, budget analyst with the Public Policy Institute of California, thinks there are simply too many eyes looking at revenue numbers for anything overly shady to happen.

Still, Silva says Prop 76 is a major shift in power… and the measure’s “gray areas” would probably have to be resolved through some kind of enacting legislation.

Voters will go to the polls three weeks from today, and the campaign season will come to an end. Until then, the money keeps rolling in.

As a snapshot, take campaign finance reports filed yesterday. Some quick math shows that, all told, political committees duking it out over the eight initiatives reported a total of about $1.65 million in contributions.

And that’s just the filings for Monday.

Most of that amount was given to committees battling Governor Schwarzenegger, including more money from both the California Teachers Association (about $90,000) and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (about $130,000).

A couple of other contributions to the anti-Arnold efforts seem worth noting. First, a $100,000 check from Zenith Insurance was sent to the committee controlled by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. Zenith’s chairman is Stanley Zax, who has been a Schwarzenegger campaign contributor in the past.

Also noteworthy was a $2000 check in opposition to Proposition 77 from Aaron Sorkin, creator of NBC’s “The West Wing.”

The governor’s California Recovery Team reported just $4000 in contributions for Monday’s filing, including $2000 from Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman. While that may not be much for one day’s work, the CRT has been pretty successful of late, with almost a whopping $10 million in contributions in just the last two weeks– $3 million of that from Schwarzenegger himself.

If two teachers send a note in support of a ballot measure en masse to the school e-mail addresses of thousands of other teachers, is that a no-no?

That’s just one piece of the issue of the week being peddled to reporters covering the union dues initiative Proposition 75.

In a nutshell: a pair of teachers, in coordination with the “Yes on 75″ campaign, sent an e-mail in support of the initiative to some 90,000 teachers on Wednesday. The note went to the official school e-mail addresses of the teachers, and apparently discussed the political spending habits of the California Teachers Association (which is sinking big bucks into the fight against Prop 75), as well as urging a yes vote on the initiative.

Today, the CTA alleged that the mass e-mailing of the political message to school e-mail addresses was illegal under the state Education Code. CTA attorneys say they’ll ask local district attorneys to investigate and possibly prosecute.

In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, the “Yes on 75″ campaign said they basically tasked some interns to dig around online and track down the e-mail addresses. Meantime, in a conference call today, CTA officials said they responded with their own note to the teachers– but sent it instead to home e-mail addresses.

For some reason I keep thinking about Clara Peller when I watch the new campaign ad from the supporters of the redistricting initiative, Proposition 77.

The ad takes a humorous bent toward voter frustration with the Legislature, with Sacramento actress Golden Henning playing a cranky little old lady who waves her walking cane as she rants about lawmakers in general, and their role in drawing political maps in particular.

Clara Peller, if you don’t remember, became a minor celebrity, of sorts, thanks to the 1984 “Where’s the beef?” TV ads for Wendy’s.

Prop 77 political consultant Wayne Johnson previewed the ad for reporters in Sacramento this morning, and said the campaign will spend $2 million for statewide airings this week. He hinted there are more ads to come; the opponents of Prop 77 have not yet aired any ads.

It also sounds unlikely that the Prop 77 team will highlight any of its ties to Governor Schwarzenegger in the final month of the campaign. In fact, what was most interesting in Johnson’s informal remarks today was that members of focus groups have occasionally told him Prop 77 is the only thing on the ballot in which they’re even interested.

“There’s no question it has a broader constituency,” said Johnson.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a new major donor to his California Recovery Team to thank: himself.

New campaign finance records show yesterday the governor wrote a check to his main ballot initiative committee for $1.25 million. Late last month, he gave the same amount to his allied committee in support of the redistricting initiative, Proposition 77. [UPDATE: A donation, as I was just reminded, that was returned]

Schwarzenegger’s move makes him one of the CRT’s biggest single contributors, ranking alongside heavy hitters like Central Valley developer (and San Diego Chargers owner) Alex Spanos ($2.5 million), Univision chairman Jerry Perenchio ($1.5 million), and DHL delivery founder William Robinson ($1.25 million in cash, another $147,000 worth of use of his private jet).

The governor’s contribution can be found in the middle of a flurry of new campaign donation records in recent days. His opponents are also busy bringing in the bucks. The committee organized by congressional Democrats to fight Prop 77, for example, has collected $323,500 this week. Another $390,000 to fight the measure was chipped in by legislative Democrats late Thursday. But Schwarzenegger’s fundraising team still seems to be the most proficient, with six-figure daily takes a now common occurrence.

For at least the second time in recent memory, a story has popped up online that claims Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is ready to jump back into making movies, while still wearing those custom leather boots he owns with the governor’s seal on the side.

And his office says… again… it’s not true.

Several online sites posted a blurb today claiming that Schwarzenegger had agreed to new sequels of both the popular Terminator series and his movie True Lies. The item goes so far as to quote actress Eliza Dushku, who played the guv’s daughter in True Lies, as saying that she was “revved” after a meeting with Schwarzenegger and others last month.

The governor’s press aide who handles his Hollywood issues, Sheryl Main, said in an e-mail that the story is “pure fiction.” “This is wishful thinking on someone’s part,” said Main.

Whether that “someone” is a fan of his movies, or a foe of his politics… who knows… but the same story seems to roll out every so often. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Rarely does a campaign come and go these days without the two warring sides claiming a TV ad is so outrageous that the stations must take the ad off the air.

And it’s no different in the initiative campaign of Governor Schwarzenegger versus the Democrat-union Alliance For A Better California. This afternoon, the Alliance demanded that TV stations yank the governor’s new Proposition 76 ad from the airwaves.

The 15-second ad features text and narration that claim that the budget initiative “will increase funding available to school districts.” Democrats and other interest groups argue that school funding will likely go down under Prop 76, not up.

(The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, by the way, has said that school funding might indeed decrease in fiscal tight times, but that the impact of Prop 76 in any given year is “uncertain.”)

This is actually the second “take that ad off the air” demand in just the past few days. Last week, the Schwarzenegger camp demanded that TV stations stop airing an ad opposing the teacher tenure initiative Proposition 74, for its claims that the measure would allow a principal to fire a teacher “without giving a reason or even a hearing.”

Even the wording of the criticism has been the same in the two instances, with both sides… the pro-Prop 74 folks and now the anti-Prop 76 folks… calling the other side’s ad “patently false.”