I just voted in California’s June 5 primary.

No, that’s not a typo.

About 58% of all primary ballots in the Golden State pending election are so-called “vote by mail”, a fancier way of saying “absentee ballot”. Call it California’s special way of decision-making, with a Netflix twist.

A scintillating ballot, it’s not. The Republican presidential race is long over; Dianne Feinstein’s quest for a fifth U.S. Senate win has all the drama of an old-style Soviet election.

Still, there’s a stopping point on the ballot that says oodles about the voters’ zeitgeist: Proposition 28 & 29.

Let’s take them, in numerical order.

Prop 28 would alter California’s term-limits law. Instead of the current 14-year limit (at max, three two-year terms in the State Assembly and two four-year stints in the State Senate), the new limit would be 12 years in the State Legislature.

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Maybe someone forgot to carry the number . . .

Or, the state’s Department of Finance misplaced the decimal point in doing its budget math . . .

Or . . .

California’s economy really is this wretched, its governor wasn’t terribly honest with the revenue projections he offered back in January, and the feds and the courts are doing their darnedest to complicate matters.

Such is the very sorry state of the State of California, now that Gov. Jerry Brown has unveiled the state budget’s “May Revise” – one featuring a deficit sinkhole that’s spread from $9 billion to a walloping $16 billion in just four months’ time, plus the threat of additional spending cuts (here’s a pdf of the gory details).

Why the $7 billion accounting error?

Three culprits: (a) Brown over-estimated tax revenues by $4.3 billion; (b) the federal government and courts blocked $1.7 billion in cuts California wanted to make; (c) the state’s on the hook to spend more on its schools thanks to a messy voter-approved law.

Now that Brown’s updated the state’s finances, look for three California storylines in the weeks and months ahead:

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As far as shock polls go, put this one somewhere between strong jolt and solid zap.

Rasmussen Reports’ daily tracking survey of the presidential race for Friday has President Obama losing to Mitt Romney, 50%-43% (4% would vote for a third-party candidate; 3% are undecided).

It’s the first time Romney’s reached 50% in Rasmussen’s polls. It also comes on the heels of statistical evidence of eroding consumer confidence and, of course, the big political news of the week – Obama not surprisingly but at long last coming out in favor of same-sex marriage.

A few words of caution about dancing around this May poll: it’s a long way to November.

Take the 2004 race, for example. As you’ll see here, George W. Bush and John Kerry swapped the lead until October, when Bush finally achieved separation.

As for his father, in May 1992 Gallup had the president race at George H.W. Bush 35%, Ross Perot 30%, and Bill Clinton at 29%. You probably know how that one turned out.

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Ordinarily, there wouldn’t be much to this column – at least, as far as North Carolina is concerned.

On Tuesday, Tar Heel voters approved a ballot measure that added a marriage amendment to its constitution. While North Carolina already bans same-sex marriage, the vote likely means civil unions and other forms of domestic partnership likely will go unrecognized as well.

That North Carolina would choose to do this isn’t earth-shattering news. Thirty other states have opted for the same policy course.

Likewise, it’s not a surprise that the measure received about 60% of the vote in Tuesday’s light-turnout primary.

For all the talk of North Carolina representing a purplish “New South” (Obama carried it by 14,000 votes out of 4.3 million cast in 2008), it’s still a socially conservative state. The moral of this ballot fight: Chelsea Clinton (she wrote a letter denouncing the ballot measure) is no match, on his home turf, for the Rev. Billy Graham (who appeared in a signed newspaper ad statewide supporting Amendment One).

So much for politics as usual.

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Here are two developments out of Sacramento that should concern you if (a) you worry about the plight of the state’s finances, and (b) you fret over how the state’s elected leaders can make a bad situation worse.

First, the financial health – a state budget that’s reached “code red”, as in a rising tide of red ink.

According to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state’s General Fund is now $3 billion shy of the year-to-date target. Unless that changes, it’ll mean more nasty budget cuts this summer regardless of the outcome of Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax-hike ballot proposition.

This latest bad news didn’t go unnoticed by Standard & Poor’s, which already gives the Golden State a nation’s-worst A- minus rating. S&P likely won’t downgrade California any further (for now), but it is concerned about Sacramento’s direction.

Which takes us to the second reason to reach for the Tums: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s plan to amend California’s initiative process.

Steinberg’s fix, introduced in this speech to the Sacramento Press Club:

1)  Allow the Legislature to place initiatives on the ballot via a simple-majority vote (at present, a two-thirds majority is required – Steinberg wouldn’t change that for constitutional amendments);

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There are two ways to explain why some veterans of Congress find themselves in unexpectedly deep trouble come voting time.

One theory: political Darwinism.

Like natural selection and the thinning of the herd, the candidate is long in the tooth and a step slower – and slow to react to a younger, more cunning predator challenger.

Another theory: political climate change.

Like a shift in temperature, the electorate undergoes a shift in thinking – about Washington and the officeholder’s relevance. Not a thinning of the herd – more like an anti-incumbent, herd mentality.

Keep this mind if, a week from now, Republicans in Indiana kick Sen. Richard Lugar to the curb in the state’s May 8 primary.

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Earlier this week, I took a lengthy flight from California to discuss a problem for which there are no quick fixes: civility, or a lack thereof, in American society.

As a participant at the 2012 Asan Plenum in Seoul, I had the honor of sharing a panel with fellow Hooverites David Brady and Tod Lindberg on the state of social polarization in the U.S.

I’ll leave it to my colleagues to express their thoughts on this topic – they’re far more eloquent in their words than anything I could paraphrase.

As for my contribution to the panel, I chose to focus on civility in U.S. politics – which seemed appropriate, given the editorial space devoted in recent months to the anticipated long and ugly campaign Americans can soon expect.

A few thoughts:

In my opinion, there’s a decided roughness around the edges in American society – decay in decency and decorum. Symptoms of the disease: people littering their bodies with graffiti, overt vulgarities, and society’s choice to lionize those who lead their lives with a decided lack of dignity (on that latter point, I’m on Jon Hamm’s side).

One can see this on display in, off all places, San Francisco – ironically, a city forever congratulating itself for its supposed tolerance.

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Recently, I authored a post on this site positing four reasons to be encouraged about Mitt Romney’s candidacy – (1) national polls showing a real horse race; (2) Romney offering a sensible big-picture message; (3) his campaign smartly exploiting opportunities; (4) the Obama economy hardly a hothouse of growth.

In the spirit of “fair and balanced” (and because I can’t bring myself to write about the intricacies of Tuesday’s Delaware primary), here are four reasons why President Obama’s followers can keep the faith, the past week’s spate of bad headlines notwithstanding.

To wit:

1)  The House Always Usually Wins. If you want to lay down some money on the presidential election (we’re talking overseas gaming, as opposed to a down-payment on a federal appointment), here’s a betting line – Obama’s the favorite, Romney’s a 2-1 underdog. The White House isn’t a casino. That said, in presidential elections as in Vegas the odds are definitely with the house. Including this year’s contest, over the past century elected incumbent presidents (this rules out Coolidge, Truman, LBJ and Ford) have sought re-election a total of 14 times. Their record: 10 wins, 4 losses. But in three of those contests, the incumbent faced in intraparty challenger. The lone exception: Herbert Hoover, 1932. If Obama survives this fall, history will show his first break was avoiding a sideshow challenge from a liberal gadfly. This is not to suggest that Romney has a 1-in-14 chance of unseating Obama – the weak economy and a “leg thrill” gone missing make this a more competitive race. But it does suggest that matters could be far worse, as far as dissatisfied base and unhappy convention are concerned.

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It wasn’t the greatest of weeks if (a) you play the market, or (b) you happen to be one of those procrastinating souls who wait until the 11^th hour to make nice with the IRS.

The Dow industrial average lost 1.6% for the week; Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 2% — for both financial yardsticks, their worst weeks of the year.

But someone’s whose fortune ran in the opposite direction: Mitt Romney, who had maybe his best week in all of 2012, beginning obviously with Rick Santorum’s decision to call it a day.

Here are four things, in addition to Santorum’s exit, that went well for Romney – and why his uphill climb to unseat President Obama perhaps isn’t as steep as some think.

1) The Polls. During the first 14 weeks of 2012, Romney’s experienced both gratifying peaks (big wins in New Hampshire, Florida and the Midwestern showdown states) and dismaying valleys (embarrassing losses in South Carolina and those Feb. 7 caucus states). He’s been bruised by movement conservatives and second-guessed by the political chattering class – the markings of a candidate destined to lose.  And yet . . . a Fox News poll released Thursday put the race at Romney 46%, Obama 44%. Another survey (this one by Rasmussen Reports) shows a lack of enthusiasm among Republicans – not a surprise after a prolonged and grumpy primary fight. But Obama has problems too: among young voters, only 20% strongly approve of the job he’s doing; among uncommitted voters, only 22% give him a hearty thumbs-up. And there’s the right-track/wrong-track question. For the third straight week, it’s only 29% positive, giving Romney an opening – if he can distill and then address why it is that voters are so vexed.

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What would happen if the Republican primary became a two man race between Romney and Santorum? According to Doug Rivers, “[Gingrich supporters] split about 60%-40% for Santorum over Romney.” So could Newt Gingrich play kingmaker for Rick Santorum?

In this podcast from the Hoover Institution’s 2012 In Perspective series, Doug Rivers, Morris Fiorina, and Tammy Frisby analyze the Republican primary with a look back at Super Tuesday and their sights on what lies ahead in the presidential race.

Hear the scholars discuss the the questions of the moment:

• How do the dynamics of the race change if Gingrich or Paul drop out? Where do the votes go? (Ron Paul: 5:32, Gingrich: 7:33, more discussion with historical precedents: 10:26) And could Romney hold on as the front runner? (7:47)
• Can Mitt Romney win the nomination – or the presidency – given the weakness he has shown in the South? (13:13)
• Why did Santorum, who looked very strong in Ohio and Tennessee several weeks ago, see his support erode? (8:50)

And the group takes up the persistent questions of the 2012 presidential contest:

• Will any candidate emerge as the nominee with a majority of delegates before Tampa? (1:48)
• Does a contested, or even brokered convention, await us? (14:28)
• What motivates Ron Paul’s campaign? (11:53)
• How have Super PACs impacted this election? (10:06, again at 15:05)

The conversation closes with pieces of advice for the Republican campaigns. (22:16)

Click the “play” button below to listen to the podcast.