In most election years, the Los Angeles Times Poll would be out in the field this week with a final look at the governor's race and the other statewide offices and propositions. Not this year. I'm told that interviewers last week had been alerted as usual to set aside Oct. 25-30 for a California-wide poll. Then the word came down: cancelled. Apparently the LAT-Bloomberg partnership doesn't include state polls, and the Times didn't want to absorb the cost alone this time around. The source who emailed me, and requested anonymity, called the failure to do a final poll another surrender of Times influence in California. I called poll director Susan Pinkus, who referred my inquiry to managing editor Doug Frantz. He replied: "We're constantly re-evaluating coverage priorities and we decided to cancel the pre-election California poll for several reasons, one of which was money."

Not that the race is close. Schwarzenegger leads Angelides by 18 points in a Public Policy Institute of California poll out this week. That even though the Democrat's TV ads have been seen by many more voters than the Governator's.

* Exit poll: Frantz confirms that the Times will conduct an Election Day exit poll, usually a more labor intensive and costly endeavor than the pre-election poll.