Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Election Post-Mortem: Requiem For California

"Jack The State" -- This Toilet Cal.

I shouldn't be too despairing, because on a National level, the Demunists were indeed defeated and the Commiecrats were indeed crushed. And even in the races where the GOP candidate was an amateur and didn't win, the message sent was a very good one. Meanwhile, the Obamunist doubles down on the condescending, which insures an even brighter 2012:
Had not some zealots talked of possible 90-to-100-seat gains, the Democrats would be in greater shock today at the near-historic 60+ House pick-up, along with a stunning near sweep of state legislatures and governorships, as well as gains in the Senate — and all a mere 21 months after the beginning of hope and change. The idea that we are going to copy EU socialism is dead. So is Keynesian massive borrowing. So is the promised second wave of Obamism, such as cap-and-trade and blanket amnesty. Obama’s supporters can brag that erstwhile absolutely safe senior Democratic senators like Boxer and Reid managed to get reelected, but they must understand that Obama’s vision and his method of enacting it simply turned off the vast majority of the country.
However, the California election results you saw on November 2nd show that the State of California is irretrievably flushing itself down the toilet.

California's most dire financial problems right now are related to public-employee obligations (pensions and healthcare). The power of public-employee unions in California have held the State and local governments in thrall for years, and with the election of Jerry Brown as Governor and the return of nearly all Demunist incumbents to the Legislature, the people of California have opted to spray kerosene on a blaze that was already threatening to overwhelm them.

Jerry Brown was the one who ensured that public employee unions would dominate the state in the first place. He signed the "fair share" fee law on his way out of his first term. Thus even non-members--of which there were and are many--had to pay up to the union. In a subsequent worker lawsuit evidence revealed that much of that money went to PACs, not union support of its members.

The return of a wretch like Boxer and the bogus global warming fraud of No on Prop 23 are just icing on the excrement cake.
Well, the die has been cast, California. Too many of you have placed your fate into the hands of a political party and a governmental machine that cares for nothing except what it can squeeze out of you to keep the party-train rolling. There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when you will have cause to bitterly regret what happened last night, and to wonder when the disaster truly became unavoidable. Well, I know: it happened last night when too many of you elected Jerry Brown as governor. Too many of you chose to kowtow to the labor unions; too many chose to believe comforting lies rather than the horrible truth.
OK, that's what happened, by why did it happen?

Part of it is demographic--and the irony of Cold War Victory. California always had a leftist element, but in the 1990's the defense workers and military personnel who always more than offset them folded up and / or left the state for the most part. Meanwhile, a growing underclass predisposed to welfare statism came up from South Of The Border (Thanks Karl Rove, Jack Kemp and George Bush! How did that Hispandering work out for you???) The electronics industry went from productive hardware manufacture to "creative" graphic arts. Leftist gayness, once confined to San Francisco, spread its spores up and down the state. (Nope, I don't care about private lives, but I do care about the kind of public policy that always seems to come from it).

Victor Davis Hanson describes the California of today:
The state will continue to descend into a pyramidal society. On top there is the wealthy, leftist coastal elite from Napa to Hollywood, which is seemingly immune from the effects of high taxes and regulation (and wants more "green" laws, gay marriage, abortion, and therapeutic bromides). The top of the pyramid is in league with a growing underclass dependent upon a huge entitlement industry; this coalition thus favors more taxes, entitlements, unionized public employees, open borders, etc. Meanwhile, a squeezed middle-class private sector is slowly being strangled, shutting down, and leaving.
The Welfare Check Left people and the Trust Fund Left people have de facto teamed up and are beating the Paycheck Right people in this state. The game is rigged against the producers of wealth in this state. If you produce wealth in this state, here is a short list of what is against you:
1) Many if not most public employees, and their whole union apparatus, will vote against you.
2) Most employees of TV stations, newspapers, and most radio stations. They vote against you and encourage others to vote against you.
3) Most employees of every college and university. They too, vote against you and encourage others to as well.
4) 90% of one ethnic minority and some 60% of another will vote against you no matter what because you are not a Democrat. The former is not growing, in fact it might even be shrinking, but the latter is growing by leaps and bounds.
5) Some 70% of federal district judges will rule against you each and every time, no matter what, if the Left government is on the other side--regardless of the law.
6) Some 30% to 40% of the general public as a whole will vote against you no matter what each and every election.

The question is not "why keep fighting", the question is: "Why do we keep playing their game?" But that leads to a sad conclusion . . . .

Part of it is also a duped electorate. Prop 25 is a turd cake but the ads only talked about the frosting -- the part that said that those nasty legislators would be punished by withholding their pay for each day the budget was overdue. It kills me that so much of the electorate fell for this deception, but it did. I'll bet less than 10% of the voters (excluding public union members, of course) ever had a clue about the real purpose of Prop 25. The sponsorship of "a coalition of firefighters, police officers and schoolteachers" should have been a clue that there was a massive union bait and switch tax money giveaway in the works.

But there were also serious tactical errors in the GOP. Meg Whitman should have known the illegal alien hired help issue would come up, and Carly Fiorina should have pointed out who really exported the jobs. Carly was also short on specifics.
 
And amateur politicians like Meg, Carly and Ah-nold are probably part of the problem. Election after election, Californians get a choice between some outsider wealthy actor or billionaire CEO who thinks they can run themselves a tidy little state, and a leftist. Billionaire CEOs seem to be attracted to the turnaround challenge while real Conservative principles and real hard knuckle California politics are annoyances they dance around. What we need is a Tom McClintock like GOP legislator who fought in the trenches and rose up through the legislature, but alas, those lack the financial clout.

And then there were local follies. For example, in the 11th Congressional District, there was a splendid chance to remove a Weeniecrat Liberal,  Jerry McNerney, and replace him with a solid Republican, David Harmer. But that wasn't good enough for the John Bircher fools in the "American Independent Party", and they threw their 3rd party spoiler into the race, with predictable results. Way to go, AIP! Thanks for giving the Left a win!
Jerry McNerney (Dem) 115,361 - 48.0%
David Harmer (Rep) 112,703 - 46.9%
David Christensen (AI) 12,439 - 5.1%

And in the state Attorney General race, that goes for you Losertarian Party fools too! How does it feel for you saps to have put criminal coddling Commiecrat Kamala Harris in office?
Kamala D. Harris (Dem) 4,443,070 - 46.1%
Steve Cooley (Rep) 4,368,617 - 45.3%
Peter Allen (Grn) 258,880 - 2.7%
Timothy J. Hannan (Lib) 246,584 - 2.6% 
Diane Beall Templin (AI) 169,994 - 1.7%
Robert J. Evans (P+F) 160,426 - 1.6%

David Harmer and Steve Cooley were definitely not RINOs, by the way.

And isn't it funny how in a close race, subsequent recounts and later ballots *always* discover new Democrat votes? It is like ACORN and SEIU union goons manufacture fake ballots that will mysteriously appear and will all be for the Democrat....hmmm.....

On a local level, Arden Arcade had a chance to make their own destiny and improve themselves like Citrus Heights or Rancho Cordova did. Even if the Arden Arcadians subsequently made big mistakes in such an alternate universe, they would *still* improve their lot, just as the citizens of Elk Grove did. But sadly, too many allowed themselves to be frightened away from the opportunity.

Sadly, it wasn't just the Leftist fools who voted down Arden Arcade's potentially bright future. There were a lot of otherwise Right-thinking people who bought into the slogan that "less government means less government", forgetting that *more local* government is ultimately less government.

The Arden Arcadians may be annexed by Sacramento proper, and then they can be lorded over by the Lexus Liberals of Land Park and/or the "Fabulous Forties". Then again, the Lexus Libs might reason that annexing the Arden Arcadians might bring in too many of the "less government" conservative voters that would upset their liberal fiefdom. So instead, they might leave Arden Arcade to rot in its unincorporated County status, as Arden Arcade slowly becomes more and more run-down like North Highlands.

Either way, Arden Arcade really missed an opportunity to create a vibrant thriving community.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't call CA-11 quite so fast. There are thousands of uncounted votes and the San Joaquin County votes will likely push Harmer in to a lead.