Yea, I know CA is screwed...but

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...I'm having a hard time reconciling how the electorate got it right on all the small propositions, such as 20, 22, & 26, but royally screwed themselves by passing 25 & not passing 23, as well as electing an all Democrat Executive branch, to compliment the completely out of controll Democrat legislature, which with the direct assistance/support of the major state & non-state unions, have driven this state into its economic abyss.  Jerry Brown??  Kamala Harris?? 

What were they smoking??  Couldn't have been pot, since they didn't pass prop19

[sirs]

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[sirs]

Coasting to the Left

Here's my question: If this week's election returns demonstrate that the vast majority of the country is moving to the right, why do the West Coast and the Northeast continue to embrace liberalism, especially when it has led to economic disaster?

Both California and New York are on the verge of bankruptcy and, according to Forbes magazine, are hostile to business by way of high taxation and strict regulation of commerce. California currently owes $158 billion, and New York is holding $60 billion in debt. But Sen. Barbara Boxer in the Golden State and New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, all big spenders, won their respective races easily.

Boxer is a classic tax-and-spend liberal who never met an entitlement program she didn't want to vacation with. So why did she coast on the Coast? The answer has to be that the "where's mine" culture has taken deep root out west; people want stuff from government, and deficits be damned.

In the Atlantic states north of the Mason-Dixon line, it is union power and Democratic machine politics that hold sway. In Philadelphia, for example, it is all liberal, all the time. Even Ben Franklin couldn't move that bunch. New York City politics and Boston politics are similar -- Democrats dominate the union vote and most ballots in the inner city.

So while the rest of the country has thrown the big-spending rascals out, the liberal power structure holds on in select areas no matter how dismal the economy is. In his press conference after the Democrats got hammered, President Obama showed some humility, but he also knows that come 2012, he'll begin with 86 electoral votes courtesy of California and New York no matter what he does.

Thus, the United States is not really united anymore. We are now a nation of coalitions. The tea party movement is largely supported outside the big cities, while the progressive base is mostly urban. If you listen closely to what the two groups are saying, there is no common ground at all. The president says he wants to work with his opponents and find policies that all can embrace. Does that seem likely to you?

Politics should be a performance game, and for many independent-thinking Americans, it still is. When Obama was inaugurated, 70 percent of the folks were behind him. But less than two years later, about 45 percent approve of the job he's doing. That's because the economy is still a mess despite a massive amount of government spending. Obama says his economic vision saved America from another depression, but that's impossible to prove. It's like saying John McCain would have been a better president.

If Boxer can win re-election based on her economic vision, then Joy Behar should be appointed secretary of state. All Americans should vote for problem-solvers and people who have proved their ability to improve the country for all of us.

I know, I'm dreaming.

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OK, riddle fans, here's a toughie: What's the difference between California voters and the passengers on the Titanic?

The passengers on the Titanic didn't vote to hit the iceberg.

Most Americans understand that California is sinking. What is almost incredible is that it has voted to sink.

On Election Day, 2010 Californians voted Democrats into every statewide position (one is still undecided). This is the party that singlehandedly has brought one of the world's greatest economies to near ruin. There may well be historical parallels to what Californians did -- but I cannot think of any.

A listener called my radio show two days after the elections to tell me that his business is booming -- thanks to Californians. His occupation? He's a real estate agent in Phoenix, Ariz.

The middle class has begun to leave California. It is, of course, impossible for most members of such a large group to leave a state; few people leave their family, their friends, their job and their home except under the most dramatic circumstances. But this fact makes all the more noteworthy the exodus from California that has been taking place.

You have to wonder how many businesses and individuals would leave California if their friends and family could also leave, if they could find a comparable job elsewhere and if they could sell their homes without losing money. What you don't have to wonder about is who would stay under those conditions. The state of California would eventually be left largely with those groups who voted Democrat in this election:
rich liberals (such as those who live in Nancy Pelosi's Marin County, in the bay area and in West Los Angeles);
state and municipal workers (who vote Democrat in as direct a pay-for-vote scheme as a law-based society allows);
those who rely on state and city governments for entitlements;
and those Latinos who either fall into the last category or who unfortunately identify the Republican Party with anti-Latino sentiments because it opposes illegal immigration.

Those who believe in individual responsibility, the free market and personal liberty are a minority in California. We greet each other as Americans would greet each other meeting in a foreign country.

We watch as one of the greatest places in the world -- with its extraordinary natural beauty, almost uniquely beautiful weather and agricultural abundance -- wastes all of this as a result of having become a left-wing experiment. What is particularly saddening is to see a state whose success was achieved because it was a Mecca for the adventurous in spirit do everything possible to crush that spirit and drive away those who have it.

There is a silver lining here: clarity. Americans living elsewhere need not elect liberal Democrats to know what will happen if they do. They only need to look at California if they want to see what happens to a state governed by the left (and, for that matter, they can look at Texas to see what happens to a state's finances when governed by the right).

The left and its teachers unions have ruined public education in California.
The left and its public service unions have saddled the state with $500 billion in unfunded pension liability.
California's left-governed cities have set themselves up as "sanctuary cities" for those who have come into America illegally.
And the left passes more and more rules governing the behavior of California citizens.

Two examples: San Francisco just banned McDonald Happy Meals because they come with a toy and therefore entice children to eat fattening food; and the Democratic legislature has made it illegal for a California employer -- even in a retail operation -- to ask a male employee who comes to work wearing a dress to wear men's clothing while at work.

And to render the Titanic analogy even more accurate, Californians voted to retain a law that was described by George Will as one "that preposterously aims to cool the planet by requiring a 30 percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2020."

That law will ensure that California taxes energy use more than any other state. That, in turn, is guaranteed to increase unemployment and the cost of living in the state -- one more reason businesses and productive individuals are leaving, but rarely moving, into California.

Environmentalist true believers have free reign in California. They have convinced a majority of the state's voters to believe the increasingly absurd notion that human carbon dioxide emission is heating up the planet to temperatures so high that humanity and the earth will suffer cataclysmic consequences.

To return to our Titanic metaphor, the great difference between that ill-fated ship's crew and California's crew (its voters and the California Democratic Party) is that the Titanic's crew did everything possible to avoid hitting the iceberg; California's crew did everything possible to hit it. Perhaps they believe global warming will melt it before they get there.