That's how California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today characterized opponents of the six measures that were part of last month's budget deal and go before voters in the May 19 special election.

Schwarzenegger made plain in a speech at the Commonwealth Club that, despite sagging approval ratings, he intends to campaign strongly for the package of six measures.

He also revealed a tough political strategy: go negative against opponents of the package and particularly the spending limit and rainy day fund measure, Prop 1A. In the speech, Schwarzenegger depicted those opponents as out of the mainstream, "the far left" (who want to spend) and "the far right." He was not kind. Consider this excerpt:

In a blast at members of his own party, he said: "Those who say that we could balance the budget through spending cuts alone are guilty of political cynicism at its worst. These are not serious people."

That's right, the governor of California effectively declared that much of the Republican establishment, a majority of GOP legislators and the two of the three GOP candidates for governor in 2010 (Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman) "are not serious people." That's a bit much, but their opposition to taxes in this circumstance is certainly unserious. It appears that the third GOP candidate, former Congressman and Schwarzenegger finance director Tom Campbell, has the governor's endorsement. If he wants it.

One of the most exciting things about the California Constitutional Convention Summit that The New America Foundation is co-sponsoring with the Bay Area Council next Tuesday is that it has the potential to act as a channel for focusing and combining the efforts of different political reform campaigns.  Many of these have similar goals but are operating on parallel tracks. 

For example, last fall Mark Paul and I drafted a proposal to radically reorder California legislative elections into a system of region-based proportional representation.  One element of this plan  was increasing the size of the state legislature from 120 representatives in two houses to 360 in one unicameral body.

At the very same time, a California voter named Michael Warnken was filing a detailed brief in a federal court in Sacramento. His suit claims that the massive size of California's legislative districts - greater than 400,000 people for each seat in the lower house - constitutes grossly inadequate and hence illegally poor representation for the state's citizens.  At a hearing last month, a federal judge refused to dismiss the case.  You can find out more about his efforts here at his site, California Commonwealth.

With Californians competing with almost half a million of their fellow citizens to get the attention even of the members of the State Assembly, how can their voices be heard?

More than a week ago, the Public Policy Institute of California put out a report looking at redistricting and legislative behavior. But it didn't get the attention it deserved. The recall attempt against Gov. Schwarzenegger, the calls for a constitutional convention, and -- most of all -- the end of the budget drama consumed air time and newspaper space. The report also was the subject of a dismissive column by Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen appears to have run out of patience with the legislature and the governor, and who can blame her? They have talked of adding measures to the November ballot as part of a budget deal, but there's been no deal and they've ignored all deadlines. The governor and lawmakers seemed to believe that they could simply waive the deadlines in the law and regulations.

This afternoon, Bowen's office issued a statement in which she closed the door on waiving deadlines to add measures. "We are at the point where that is unacceptable," she said in the statement. She has advised county election officials to move forward with their November general election preparations without the governor and the legislature. Bowen's making the right call--it's essential to get the November ballots right, and that takes time. But it also deepens the state's budget stalemate. The goal of getting measures on the November ballot offered one of the few time pressures that seemed to mean anything to our procrastinating elected leaders. Now, that bit of time pressure is gone. If there are going to be ballot measures as part of any compromise, they would appear on a special election ballot in 2009, if the governor chose to call one, or on the next scheduled statewide ballot, the June 2010 primary.