Polls, polls, and more polls. Regular readers know I have no faith in any of them, whether they agree with my position or not. But I figured a post on the recent polls couldn’t hurt on a Superbowl Sunday so here ya go.

First, the poll with the largest sampling, therefore the more reliable one, the Reuters/CSpan/Zogby poll, with 1185 Likely Voters, shows Romney leading McCain in California 37% to 34%. Good news.

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Alanis Morissette’s song “Isn’t It Ironic” comes to mind while reading this:

Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed into office during California’s last budget crisis, promising to “end the crazy deficit spending” so the state would never go over the financial cliff again. But four years later, California is back in the same spot.

The cooling economy has opened up a projected $14.5 billion deficit over the next 18 months, and the governor proposed this week to cut school spending, release 22,000 prisoners early and shut dozens of state parks.

The irony is rich: He is facing a repeat of the financial crisis that undid Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, the man Schwarzenegger ousted in a turbulent recall election.

“It is poetic justice,” said Garry South, a former Davis adviser, remembering Schwarzenegger’s taunts in the 2003 election. “All the hullaballoo he made during the recall, putting up ads saying he would cut up the state’s credit cards and stop this crazy deficit spending _ and he ultimately didn’t do either one.”

Far from solving California’s systemic budget problems, Schwarzenegger has taken several actions that have made them worse. Just like Davis, Schwarzenegger cut taxes but not spending, which has risen 30 percent since he took office. That ensured that when tax revenue tapered off, the budget gap would reappear.

Of course the fact is that he tried to fix the budget years ago by asking the State legislature to put up spending caps. Being a Socialist state they refused, and the Democrats all across the land loved them for it. He did pass a light version of the cap along with a 15 billion dollar bond bail out which he said would ensure the mess would never happen again.

Clearly not believing his own rhetoric, he came back with a second ballot measure in 2005 to impose a hard spending cap and give the governor authority to cut the budget in the middle of the year. But public employee unions, led by teachers, shot it down, and the governor’s approval rating dropped by half.

When the good times rolled back and brought a $9 billion tax surplus, he didn’t bank it all. Instead, he gave most of it to education to pacify the teachers.

And there you go. His approval rating dropped, the legislature refused to work with him, AND when he had all that surplus he didn’t do the right thing and bank it all.

While Tom McClintock should of been elected I can’t blame Arnold for everything here. Oh, I blame him plenty, but not for everything. The ignorant people of this state keep electing Socialist legislators who keep giving more and taxing more. When Arnold tried to fix it he was run out of Congress with pitchforks. But what I can fault him for is not fighting for those caps. Not going back against those pitchforks like Conan and taking on the Democrats. It would of been the end of his career here in California, for sure, but he would of went down with his principals intact. Instead he changed his principals to stay in office and became a Democrat.

Oh, and one other thing, it may be a good time to look at how much of the 14.5 billion dollar shortfall comes from all the handouts to illegal’s.

The nanny state of the Democrats becoming stronger everyday:

The conceit in the 1960s show “The Outer Limits” was that outside forces had taken control of your television set.

Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.

The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators.

The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers’ preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities’ suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers’ wishes.

Final approval is expected next month.

My guess? Save your old thermostats, they will be selling for big prices on ebay in the future.

But seriously this is a case of the state telling the people how cold or how warm they can be because its too hard to actually build more power generators. Why? Because of the environmentalists. No drilling for more oil because it might hurt some rat. No building of nuclear reactors because it might harm people. No building of new refineries because they are too dirty.

So the result?

The government tells you when you can be comfortable in your own home.