The first public polls on any ballot measures before election day should usually be taken with a grain of salt; after all, the voters still don't know very much about the proposals, and the election is usually a long ways off.

That's not altogether true in the poll out today.

The new Field Poll has been written about pretty extensively today in the MSM (here, here, here). And, in general, it seems to indicate that the voters may be willing to go along with some, or all, of the six budget-related measures on the May 19 special election ballot.

But that's not a sure bet. And the budget measure most in limbo is also the one whose defeat would surely unravel the delicately balanced 17-month state budget signed into law last month.

That would be Proposition 1C, the proposal to both modify the California Lottery and to borrow against its future profits to the tune of $5 billion. Field found that the measure is favored by a plurality of voters surveyed at this point (48-37 registered, 47-39 likely voters). But the conventional wisdom in California is that a ballot measure that's below the 50-percent line in the early going is a ballot measure in danger of going down to defeat.

While some might consider this "the early going" in the campaign to ratify all six proposals, it's not. In fact, the election is in 77 days... just 11 weeks from today. That's the equivalent of late August for a November election, and it's usually the starting line for the proverbial home stretch of a political campaign. But everything this time around will be condensed -- including the time allowed for Governor Schwarzenegger and his allies to make their case on the package of measures.

In the question Field posed, voters were told that Prop 1C would use increased lottery revenes "to address the current budget deficit." That's true, but it's also a complicated system of borrowing $5 billion from Wall Street investors sometime before July 2011.

Also true, and probably no less controversial, is that Prop 1C effectively removes public schools from being the direct benefactor of the lottery. Instead, it authorizes an increase in general fund spending on K-12 education and community colleges that's roughly equal to what the lottery now provides.

There will be more time to ruminate on such changes. But remember that these six ballot measures, combined, account for about $6 billion of the $41 billion deficit solution that took weeks to cobble together.

And almost all of that comes from Prop 1C.

No word yet on who might line up against the lottery borrowing measure. Previous versions of a lottery change, when debated in the Legislature over the last couple of years, were not popular in the education community; after all, lottery revenues have historically had fewer restrictions on how they must be spent than has money earmarked for schools under 1988's Proposition 98. Changes in the lottery to increase sales and revenue have also been closely watched by Indian gaming tribes, and some of those same tribes are reportedly now mulling over their position on Prop 1C.

The spending limitation, Proposition 1A, and other measures may be getting much of the attention for now. But keep your eye on Prop 1C; if it goes down, it's going to make the budget work of legislators this coming summer that much more difficult... and contentious.

[update: The spokesman for the campaign to pass Prop 1C, political consultant Roger Salazar, says Field neglected to tell its respondents that the official summary of the measure says 1C "protects funding levels for schools currently provided by lottery revenues." Salazar argues that omission skews the results "to be less favorable than we believe they actually are."]