California: proxy war by Gulliani and Clinton over initiative to split electoral vote
The New York Times reports: Supporters of Rudolph W. Giuliani and of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton are embroiled in their first major affray of the political season over a ballot initiative on presidential electoral votes some 2,500 miles from the pancake houses of Skaneateles, N.Y., and the fire stations of Queens. ...
The proposed measure here would ask voters to apportion electoral votes by Congressional district, potentially giving the 2008 Republican nominee 20 of the state’s 55 votes — the rough equivalent of winning Illinois or Pennsylvania — in this otherwise reliably Democratic state. ...
Started by a Republican lawyer in California, the measure has been driven almost entirely by people who are associated with or have given money to Mr. Giuliani’s presidential campaign.
The effort to kill the initiative — executed with a swift fierceness almost unheard of for an initiative in such an early stage — has been led by a bevy of Clinton supporters, including a former Clinton White House official, prominent elected Democratic supporters and one of Mrs. Clinton’s most prolific fund-raisers. -- In Ballot Fight, California Gets a Taste of ’08