Never mind the polls; sometimes you just have to read the tea leaves.

The LA Times reported this week that the effort in California to change the way that state's electoral votes are distributed has collapsed because of a lack of money. Later reports indicated that there had been only one primary funder and the organization had been in turmoil.

There's a lot to digest here. But the most important question is "Since when does the Republican Party have trouble funding initiatives like this in California?" After all, this is the state where GOP activists had no trouble whatsoever coming up with the cash to recall a Democratic governor. It's also the state where anti-tax activists have been able to finance ballot propositions that changed the tax code.

This effort was potentially far more reaching than any of the others. California, the state with the largest number of electorla votes, has a winner-take-all approach. Even if a presidential candidate gets 50.1 percent of the popular vote, he or she gets all of the 57 electoral votes.

The initiative would have changed that and, therefore, made it far more likely the Republican presidential candidate would have gotten at least some electoral votes. In an era when only one or two states and a handful of electoral votes has determined who has been elected, this would have been a huge change.

That's why it's so surprising this effort collapsed for lack of funding and organization. That's why it also may so a great deal about what Republicans think about their propects in 2008. If GOP money is sitting this one out, and if the Republican National Committee doesn't have the resources to bail out this effort, it may portend a disaster for the party in the 2008 elections.