We should also mention that the new PPIC poll finds that a proposed initiative to change the term limits law for legislators has bare majority support, 52%-40%. Those kinds of numbers are, historically at least, a dangerous position for an initiative to be in at this stage in the game.

By the way, the PPIC survey team read the entire title and summary to the respondents... a title and summary that supporters of the current term limits system claim is biased towards the initiative. Supporters of the initiative disagree, as did a Sacramento judge in a recent decision.

But at the same time, 61% of those polled said they think the current system (six years max in the Assembly, eight years max in the Senate) is just peachy. In this audio clip, pollster Mark Baldassare and I discuss what that might mean for a ballot initiative battle on the subject. We also talk about what might be behind the poll's finding that more Republicans seem to favor the term limit initiative than do Democrats or independents.

The full poll will be here soon. The backers of the term limits initiative see these latest numbers as a positive sign, given that PPIC's earlier survey showed significantly less interest by voters in approving their proposal.