I don't think so. Here in Kalifornia there just isn't going to be enough revenue to satisfy all those who expect the state to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Massive numbers of public employees are going to be plenty disappointed. They are due some realism and there will be nothing "upbeat" about it.
A man who hates the present set up and sees it as unworkable does not become our intellectual ally in any sense, by that fact alone. That fact is politically barren. It is dry tinder for demagogues, and not any basis of rational policy. By all means let's convince them. Don't pretend we already have, when all of this was plain as a pikestaff in November, and they still voted for the wrong people.