Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Case of CA’s Missing Republicans



Charlie Mahtesian over at Polico has a mystery - how did the GOP in California fade into irrelevance?:

According to the latest figures from the Secretary of State's office, Democratic registration is 43.5% to 30.3% for Republicans.

The GOP actually has a majority of voters in 30 of California's 58 counties. But that number is misleading. If you look at the list of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of Democrats, they tend to be some of the more populous in the state – places like Alameda (Oakland) Los Angeles (LA), Contra Costa (Bay area), and San Mateo (Bay area) counties.

The 10 counties with the highest percentage of Republicans tend to be among the least populous counties, all of them located inland.

Wow - over a 13 point Democrat advantage in registration. How can this be when California is the state that gave us Reagan and Nixon both won two terms and carried the state each time? What has happened to cause the incredible turn around? Have the former GOPer's of the state finally seen the error of their ways and gone over to the dark side?

Well to answer this I put on my deerstalker hat and found an article by The Wall Street Journal's Allysia Finley who interviewed Joel Kotkin a leading U.S. demographer. In the article Mr. Kotkin makes the case that over the past 20 years the Democratic Party has done nothing short of running anybody who is productive out of the state:

Now, however, the Golden State's fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape. The first thing that comes to many American minds when you mention California isn't Hollywood or tanned girls on a beach, but Greece. Many progressives in California take that as a compliment since Greeks are ostensibly happier. But as Mr. Kotkin notes, Californians are increasingly pursuing happiness elsewhere.

And when Mr. Kotkin talks about red tape he means it. For example, look at the state's current cap-and-trade law AB32 will raise the cost of energy and drive out even more manufacturing jobs without making even a dent in global carbon emissions. Meanwhile California's electricity prices are already 50% higher than the national average. Golly, if I had a manufacturing company that relied on electricity to produce my product I might look elsewhere if I were looking to relocate.

But just how bad is the net population loss problem for California? I mean we are talking about CALIFORNIA here, the land of milk and honey for crying out loud, how bad could it be? Mr. Kotkin again:

Nearly four million more people have left the Golden State in the last two decades than have come from other states. This is a sharp reversal from the 1980s, when 100,000 more Americans were settling in California each year than were leaving. According to Mr. Kotkin, most of those leaving are between the ages of 5 and 14 or 34 to 45. In other words, young families.

Of those 4 million that have left the state! - I'm just asking here, how many do you think were the homeless folks watching porn for free in a San Francisco Library? I'm gonna go with exactly zero. My guess is that the people leaving are those gosh-darn productive folks who are being punished with draconian regulations and taxes (10.3% top rate for millionaires and 9.3% top rate for those who earn over $48,000). More from Kotkin:

And Democrats want to raise taxes even more. Mind you, the November ballot initiative that Mr. Brown is spearheading would primarily hit those whom Democrats call "millionaires" (i.e., people who make more than $250,000 a year). Some Republicans have warned that it will cause a millionaire march out of the state.

That said, "It's really going to hit the small business owners and the young family that's trying to accumulate enough to raise a family, maybe send their kids to private school. It'll kick them in the teeth."

Well at least the GOP's loss isn't to conversion but rather flight. According to the United States Census Bureau Texas, Arizona, Washington and Arizona are the top destinations for Republicans Californians leaving the state. All of which coincidentally are much more business friendly. And I for one do not think it is a coincidence that both Republican numbers and the general population are decreasing in the Golden State.

15 comments:

  1. Several elected Republicans in CA are RINOs. Meg Whitman campaigned as a RINO, as did Carly Fiorina, and they were trounced. I don't know why candidates are so afraid to be strong about conservative ideas in this state.

    I live in a conservative part of NorCal and so I'm somewhat insulated from the liberal/democrat crazies in other parts of the state...Someday I will be moving to Texas or Arizona.

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    1. CA Republican - thank you very much for your comment. Would love to have your view as a guest blog on this site. But let me say this. I travel a fair bit to CA on business mostly to Napa and Sonoma and I rarely see the liberal bias that is systemic in the lower part of the state. It is incredible to me that 10 counties in the state literally dictate the direction of the rest of you guys.

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    2. Please, please don't bring any of your libby friends or ideas with you, that's the last thing Texas needs or wants. If you're a true conservative, then welcome, but I have a strong suspicion that most of the people coming here to fine State of Texas are those silly libs who are running from the mess they made.

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    3. Anonymous - Well as long as y'all don't offer free internet porn at the libraries I think you will be all right.

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  2. At least there are still some sane states we can move to if our states go California. If Obama gets his way, all the country will go California. Then where do we go?

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    1. Shovel man - you got that right but here is the trick. We have got to get the Feds out of your lives and push decisions down on the states so that citizens can make an informed decision about where to live. The more the Feds get into our lives the less the states have a say-so. That is not what our country was founded on.

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  3. Two things come to mind, which will help push California over the edge. THe first will be the Facebook tax effect for two year the the Democrats will raise the level of spending to match the windfall capital gains from the IPO. Of course this is short term tax money (two years at best) So the indebitted state will not pay off what it owes it will spend the and raise the level of spending.
    The second event the short sighted Democrats will not react fast enough to, the the completion of the Widening of the Panamal Canal. This project will allow the the super containers to by-pass the California ports/rail and deliver products directly to the east coast. The lost revenue and increase spending will be the tipping point.

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    1. Bro. Good point never realized that. Dammit got some research to do and you know how much I hate research!!

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    2. Story is had to find but it is out there. To many only pay attention to the US news and not what goes on outside the borders.

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  4. It's not just the lost revenue, its the lost jobs. I am a CA native, and it depresses me to see how much CA has changed for the worse over the last 50 years. Mr. Kotkin has it correct in his article, the demise of CA was born of the unions/politicians marriage. The conservatives are just reacting in obvious fashion, look for greener pastures. The astounding thing is, the libs think such behavior is folly, and they think that no one REALLY is going to leave!

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    1. Anonymous thanks for your comment and you are spot on. The Libs just can't seem to get their head around commerce. They think that businesses are simply a cow that they can milk forever - after all who would ever want to leave CA! And yet they have driven off many small businesses and can't figure out why.

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  5. The California GOP is controlled by the Bush faction: bible thumping warmongers. The California GOP is so incompetent that it has no control over candidate selection, and they wind up having people like Schwarzenegger, Whitman, and Fiorina. Clueless Hollywood people and clueless corporate oligarchs. They could not even beat Barbara Boxer. Barbara Boxer! Really, the GOP needs to go away, and be replaced by a conservative party without the warmongering and the evangelicals. California is where trends start, so it's encouraging.

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    1. Anonymous - thanks for dropping by. You know your point about the 'conservatives' that CA does bring to the table are a bit strange (rivaling only Minnesota for strangeness). Do you think that is due to the fact that most of the GOP'ers that would have been good have all left?

      As to the trend starting in CA - I am afraid that the state will have to hit rock bottom before the adults can come in and pick up the pieces.

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  6. The Tea Party is the future. Smaller government, lower taxes, less spending and borrowing. No social issues.

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    1. doctorfixit - Good to see you here. It seems I've heard of some of the things you reference you know out dated notions like smaller govn't lower taxes etc.. oh yeah our founding fathers! By the way i like your site Ten Reforms that Will Save America. If it's OK with you I will link to it in a future post.

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