Marty Wilson, a leading Sacramento political consultant who is a favorite of your blogger, managed the campaign in favor of Prop 10, the T. Boone Pickens-backed $5 billion general obligation bond to fund alternative fuels. Prop 10 lost badly, despite the fact that it had overwhelming financial support and an opposition with little funding.

Wilson, a good-natured sort, asks himself the following question: at Fox & Hounds Daily: “Marty, how the Hell did you lose the Proposition 10 campaign when you were funded and your opposition had no money?” To which I answer, “It was harder than you think.” The rest of the story is here. His explanation of why the measure went down -- the cost, the size of the state's budget crisis -- matches the political problems I discussed earlier this fall in the Scientific American.