Yesterday was the day Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his team had set to launch of their campaign to create a “phenomenon of anger” against California’s teachers and firemen and state legislature, in order to pass ballot initiatives specifically designed to hurt those groups and others in special election to be held this November.

Remarkably, the governor’s team had even lined up coverage from the local television stations across the state. These stations do not normally cover politics – especially here in Los Angeles, where stories like car chases and the bloody aftermaths of crime scenes may not be more important but are definitely get better ratings than ho-hum stories about budget deficits, legislative bills and political horse races.

But das Guber’s big day was a big bust. The launch rally for his anger campaign was set to go live on the local news at 5 PM – but at about 1 PM came the announcement that the verdict in the Michael Jackson trial would be read at within the hour. Local news all up and down the state went wall-to-wall on the verdict in Santa Maria for the rest of the day, leaving Arnold all alone at the ball.

On C-Span this morning, Chuck Todd of “The Hotline” said that of the nine local stations in Los Angeles, on KCBS Channel 2 covered the governor’s announcment in its entirety but that was on a tape delay much later in the evening.