The Assembly Districts that matter
[UPDATE: Darn, darn, gosh golly gee, and darn.
The following analysis is all wrong. It's the candidates that rotate, not the wacky rearranged alphabet. So, until the complete list of candidates is announced, it's not possible to tell in which Assembly districts the popular candidates will appear at the top of the ballot. Ahnold may never appear at the top of the ballot, and may always be preceded by Arianna and Bustamante.
This rotation scheme is described here:
The resulting order of letters constitutes the alphabet to be used for determining the order of candidates' names on the upcoming statewide ballot; it applies throughout the name, not just for the first letter so that Adams could precede Aaron.
Names of candidates for offices voted on statewide rotate by Assembly district, starting with Assembly District 1 where the names appear as first determined by the random alphabet. In Assembly District 2, the candidate who appeared first in Assembly District 1 drops to the bottom and the other candidates move up one position and so on throughout the 80 districts...
I blame the liberal media for making me think it was alphabetical rotation.]
OK, they all matter in the CA recall. However, in some districts the top candidates will all be at the top of the ballot, and in others they'll all be at the bottom.
Arianna will be at the top in the 9th (either all of the city of Sacramento, or the south part of it), 35th (the big empty Santa Barbara county and the cities of Ventura and Santa "An American Family" Barbara), and 61st (Pomona, Ontario, and Chino in the Inland Empire) districts.
Bustamante will be at the top in the 10th (includes parts of Stockton and Lodi [not a good place to be stuck]. However, it also includes the largely empty Amador county and the Sacramento suburbs of Rancho Cordova and Rancho Murrieta), 36th (northern L.A. County between Lancaster and Apple Valley), and 62nd (Fontana, Rialto, and points east and south) districts. In those districts, Arianna will be at the bottom of the ballot. However, Ahnold will be just behind Bustamante.
In the 11th (northern part of the East Bay from Hercules to Concord to Pittsburg), 37th (Includes the largely empty northern Ventura and north western L.A. Counties. However, also includes conservative strongholds like Camarillo and Thousand Oaks), and 63rd (wackily starts in Rancho Cucamonga and Upland, then swings over to Redlands) districts, Ahnold will be at the top of the ballot, and Arianna and Bustamante will be at the bottom.
I might look at the demographic data later, but for now it seems like advantage Ahnold.
Lonewacko's assignment desk: someone compile a series of CA maps, one for each candidate. Show the counties where each will be at various ranges in the ballot (first page, second page, etc.) using different colors on the map. Produce a corresponding table with demographic data.