UPDATED 9 p.m.: Rick Claussen, the veteran initiative consultant handling the sweeping campaign for all six California special election measures, is out with an interesting memo on the recent PPIC poll, which shows five of those six in trouble.

Claussen is self-interested obviously. But your blogger has found him to be very reliable in the past. (Most recently, your blogger said Prop 11, last November's redistricting initiative in California, had no chance of passing. Claussen told me I was wrong and then proved it, managing the campaign that got it passed).

In this new memo, dated Wednesday, Claussen writes that the PPIC poll effectively assumes a turnout of 50 percent. He says the campaign's own internals on Prop 1A show it with a lead of 50 to 37 percent. That would make the measure hardly a sure thing, but that's much better than the PPIC poll, which showed it trailing, with 46 percent No and 39 percent Yes:

From the memo:

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.

This is a crucial study from the Public Policy Insitute of California on the state's water challenges. It calls for a building a peripheral canal to carry water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The reasons are complicated, but the politics could be dangerous. The 1982 ballot measure to establish a peripheral canal was defeated, a major political event (that helped to spawn the state's ballot measure industry).