GOP down to its last Bay Area lawmaker

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/21/8 | John Wildermuth

[SmithL]

Peninsula GOP leaders asked Atherton Republican Greg Conlon "to take a bullet for the party," he said, and run against Jackie Speier in the special election to replace the late Rep. Tom Lantos earlier this month.

The 75-year-old Conlon played the good soldier, dutifully finishing second with 9 percent of the vote, as Democrat Speier grabbed 79 percent for an easy - and expected - victory.

Across the Bay Area, more Republicans are being asked to face that same electoral firing squad, marching into legislative contests where they have little or no chance of winning behind an increasingly tattered GOP banner.

"The Bay Area and Los Angeles just have more Democrats than other parts of the state," said Tom Del Beccaro of Lafayette, vice chairman of the state Republican Party. "Our problems are worse by a matter of degree compared to (the party's) problems statewide."

There are ominous signs that Republicans in the Bay Area are flirting with political irrelevance as the region, one of the bluest in the nation, faces the possibility of having no GOP lawmakers in the state Legislature or Congress.

-- Of the 38 congressional, state Senate and Assembly seats that are either entirely or largely within the nine Bay Area counties, Republicans hold only the 15th Assembly District seat in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. And the GOP incumbent there, Guy Houston of San Ramon, is termed out this year.

-- In the 12 local congressional races in 2006, the only Democrat to get less than 66 percent of the vote was Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton, who collected 53 percent to take the 11th Congressional District seat from 14-year incumbent Republican Richard Pombo.

-- Since 2004, Republican registration has dropped in every Bay Area county,

[SmithL]

Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-San Ramon,

[brooklyn dave]

Sounds like a lot of areas in and around NYC

[Galactic Overlord-In-Chief]

This article may interest you.

[dfwgator]

You mean there actually was one?

[fieldmarshaldj]

I love the polling questions:

Disappearance of GOP lawmakers in Bay Area is:

Good thing - 38%
Bad thing - 30%
Will happen in more places if party doesn’t move back toward center - 32%

Wow, what a nice set of choices. Firstly, the Bay Area, believe it or not, once used to be one of the premier GOP areas of the nation. Long ago, it also used to have more families and more normal people. San Francisco (in the Pelosi seat) used to send a Jewish Conservative Republican named Florence Kahn. The liberals of her era criticized her for her voting record because she took her cue from a New Hampshire Conservative Republican Senator named George Moses. Her response to her critics ? “I’m a Jew. Who else would I follow but Moses ?”

Problem is, the Bay Area moved from Conservative to moderate GOP to liberal Dem and then moonbat Stalinist. In the Berkeley/Oakland district, up until 1959 it was a Republican seat that elected John Allen. Allen lost his seat to a very liberal rodent named Jeffery Cohelan in the ‘58 massacre. Allen saw the writing on the wall and moved to Idaho. Cohelan, who was one of the most liberal members during his 12 years in the House was STILL not considered liberal enough for his district, and in 1970, they dumped him (to his utter shock) for the Black Stalinist and America-hater Ron “Red” Dellums. He passed off the seat to his Communist protege, Barbara Lee.

Once these districts start moving off in that direction, there is no earthly way the GOP can compete, and they can’t move left enough to accommodate the diseased mindset of these areas. Fact is, there’s something seriously wrong with the people that live in these places. They’re insular fairy-tale lands where Republicans and Conservatives are the enemies of everything they hold dear and outsiders in foreign lands that rape, kill, and destroy everything in sight are preferable, and indeed morally superior, to those jingoistic America-lovers in flyover country. Funny thing is, most of them wouldn’t make it 5 minutes in those 3rd world countries they wish to make common-cause with.

Simply put, those people couldn’t even exist and enjoy their “rights” without us Conservatives to maintain the rest of the country. If it ever went the other way around, this country would collapse swiftly. These folks will indeed be our deaths if something isn’t done about them.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Meant to ping you to #5.

[Axenolith]

What you’re also getting here is the occurance of the majority, or at least a large percentage of the population, living off the government teat. If you give non-producers a vote, they’ll take, and also pass legislation that makes their boring and worthless lives “meaningful” to boot.

Between bums, students, government workers, and stupid people, it’s no surprise ‘Rats win most of the seats. Hell, the freeways almost look post-apocalyptic on a government holiday around here.

It doesn’t help to have so many R’s falling all over themselves to be the best RINO they can be either...

[Darren McCarty]

I can see the core cities - Berkely, Oakland, and San Francisco - but all the suburban counties are bad until you get to the Stockton, Modesto, and Sacremento suburbs.

Besides Pelosi and Lee, North Bay has Mike Thompson (somewhat) and Lynn Woolsey. East Bay has George Miller (Part of that is Richmond) and Ellen Tauscher, Pete Stark, and Jerry McNerney (Pombo's seat which did go to Bush).

South Bay has Tom Lantos (Replacement), Anna Eschoo, Mike Honda, and Zoe Lofgren.

And even the Stockton/Modesto seat has Dennis Cardoza (Bush won it in 04).

13 Democrats, and most of them extreme lefties.

[darkangel82]

Woolsey is SO far left, if she went any further she’d fall off the edge of the planet.

[fieldmarshaldj]

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Serial”, you’ll get a notion of what the suburbanites mindset is like — and this film was from 1980 (intended as a comedy, it’s more a chilling reminder of where they took a turn for the worst).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081485/

I’ve always surmised that the nuttiest county in CA isn’t San Francisco or Alameda, but Marin (where “Serial” is set). Marin was still voting majority Republican in the ‘70s, but lost their minds shortly afterwards and was already going to the extreme left by 1980 (Reagan won a plurality, but the added liberal votes were a majority).

Take a look at the shift here:

Marin
1968 (50%R 44%D)
1972 (52%R 46%D)
1976 (53%R 43%D) — Last majority vote for GOP President
1980 (46%R 36%D 13% Anderson (RINO)) — Last plurality vote for GOP
1984 (49%R 50%D) — Democrat ever after
1988 (40%R 59%D)
1992 (23%R 58%D 18% Perot)
1996 (28%R 58%D 6% Perot 8% Others)
2000 (28%R 64%D 7% Nader)
2004 (25%R 73%D) — Bush received fewer votes than in 2000

San Francisco County and Alameda both have seen support for the GOP drop by half or more in around 30 years or so. The last time either voted majority GOP for President was in 1956 for Eisenhower. In 48 years, in the case of SF, it went from about 51% (Ike) in 1956 to 15% (Dubya) by 2004. Absolutely jaw-dropping.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Once these districts start moving off in that direction, there is no earthly way the GOP can compete, and they can’t move left enough to accommodate the diseased mindset of these areas. Fact is, there’s something seriously wrong with the people that live in these places.

Not really, it's more because of gerrymandering. Throughout California and even in Berkeley, Democrat representatives are way, way to the left of the average voter in their districts (and the Republicans way, way to the right - thus the existence of a Duncan Hunter) but they stay in office because the boundaries as drawn virtually guarantee a party victory and a perpetual Democrat majority. It takes an awful lot of radicalism or malfeasance in office to get a politically disinterested moderate to stop voting their traditional party allegiance in the voting booth: "Oh, yeah, I remember Barbara Boxer...she cares about the environment. Check."

Redraw the districts in a more natural manner and there would be a lot more close races.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Gerrymandering can only go so far. If your overall vote is running anywhere from 75% to 85% for the bad guys, you’re not going to get a competitive district out of it. Take a look at another example of a moonbat state, Massachusetts. Of the 10-member House delegation, we couldn’t gerrymander for ourselves a single Republican seat. At best, we might be able to get one in which we have a 40%+ shot at winning, but no better. San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Alameda, most of Contra Costra — they’re virtually all out of reach now.

Remember, too, that the post-2002 Congressional lines in CA are effectively little changed from the post-1992 lines, essentially incumbent protection, which were favorable to the GOP (and at one point, we had a tied delegation in 1995 following Tom Campbell’s special election victory, 26 seats each). Aside from a couple seats, virtually all the counties that vote majority GOP do have GOP Congressmembers.

[darkangel82]

Also, San Diego has a Republican mayor(Sanders) but a Democratic congress rep(Davis). Hunter’s district is only the suburbs and not SD proper.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Davis has only part of San Diego, ditto the moonbat Bob Filner.

[darkangel82]

Filthbag, I mean Filner, is bad even by ‘rat standards. It’s going to take a Duke Cunningham-like scandal to bring him down, unfortunately.

[fieldmarshaldj]

That district had been represented by a rodent slimebag in the ‘80s named Jim Bates. Duke Cunningham actually beat him in 1990. When redistricting occurred 2 years later, Cunningham had to decide whether to run in the more urban/Hispanic section or the suburban area, and he went with the latter because it would be easier for the GOP, and the former went to Filner. It’s possible Cunningham could’ve held the Filner seat for a few cycles before it would’ve fallen (like Dornan’s district was before it fell due to voter fraud).

[Darren McCarty]

I have to agree about Marin County (with Sonoma County close behind). Woosley is a Fascist and I rarely use that term because I believe in Godwin's law.

Interesting to notice. Marin County is 85% white. For the Bay Area, that's high. I figured the Asian population would be higher (10% in Contra Costa, 5% in Marin). Only 3% Black. Contra Costa is 65% white. It has some nuts, but it's not like Marin. They have a higher minority population, and a city like Richmond may smack some reality into whitey there.

[fieldmarshaldj]

It seems like when too many White people congregate, nutty crap happens (at least on the coasts and in the ‘burbs). Blacks have actually been forced out of SF en masse because of the high cost of living, it’s almost been made “negro free” by the oh-so-tolerant ultrarich White liberals.

Woolsey is indeed an awful Rep., she succeeded Babs Boxer, and Boxer, in turn, succeeded the previous moonbat, John Burton. But Woolsey is only beaten out by Barbara Lee, whom I think is the absolute worst from CA. Now with Jackie Speier’s election, they’re both going to have a strong challenger for top moonbat.

[Impy]

At least they’re putting up candidates instead of passing.

[Darren McCarty]

I’m still PO’ed at Arkansas for passing on Pryor.