GOP strategist Ed Rollins, somewhat surprisingly, was surprised by "Arnold getting so blown away in California. The lesson is don't put everything 'your enemies don't want on the same ballot' so that they can turn it into a holy war.'While the anti RON push centered around single amendments, mostly negative ads discrediting Issue 3, campaign finance reform, or fixating on Irssue 4, redistricting, the RON folks quite naturally pushed all four initiatives together -- and they failed together.
The pro-reform campaign framed the issues as a package, which like any chain with a weak link brought the whole contraption down when one of the links was sucessfully attacked.
More lessons on how democrats and progressives lose against determined, organized, well-funded, political professionals will be coming to a theater near you.