The blackout blackout

For the third weekday in a row the state's peak power usage approached 50,000 megawatts, but the lights remain on. Looking at the ISO System Outlook the state is out of the woods for today, as demand wanes in the evening. Not only that but temperatures have begun to cool. That's good news for California, but not quite as good for Team Angelides, which yesterday sent out a missive advertising today's campaign event in Los Angeles with the preface "With continued blackouts throughout the state..." But those blackouts never materialized. Dan Walters considered this morning whether Angelides might be hoping for an outage: Does that mean that in his heart of hearts, Angelides hopes the heat wave will morph into a gigantic natural disaster that will damage Schwarzenegger's standing and slow what has become a political juggernaut? Only he could answer that question. And Team Schwarzenegger fired off a missive (they come daily during the week), tagging Angelides for his pessimism. "I guess this is the most we can expect from a pessimistic campaign that sits around crossing its fingers for a power blackout," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Matt David in a statement. Angelides has been trying for a couple of weeks to ride Schwarzenegger and the news cycle to more, and more positive, coverage but he seems to have overreached this week.