Posted on 11/12/2010 3:20:06 AM PST by Gomer1066
The most baffling aspect of last week's election "wave" is the fact that a few areas of the country remained untouched by it. When Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts early this year, there was reason to believe that even some of the deep "blue" states might succumb to a turn to the right. But in November, they didn't.
In California, voters kept Barabara Boxer in her Senate seat, but more tellingly, they voted to put Jerry Brown—the washed-up old hippie known as Governor Moonbeam from his previous term in office—back into the governor's mansion. In Massachusetts, only ten months after Scott Brown, Republicans didn't pick up a single House seat, and Obama clone Deval Patrick was re-elected as governor. And while Illinois voted to put a squishy moderate Republican into Barack Obama's Senate seat and added a few GOP House seats "downstate"—i.e., outside of Chicago—they also voted for a Democratic governor who promised to raise their taxes to fill the gaping maw of the state's public employee pensions. New York also put off any day of reckoning with its budget problems.
On the national level, this is more of an annoyance: it cost Republicans their shot at a bare majority in the Senate, but it's not clear how much the Republicans could have accomplished with those extra Senate votes, anyway. The real damage will be caused in the states themselves, because each of the holdout states is being destroyed by exactly the policies its voters chose to keep on supporting.
A number of years ago, a leftist wrote a book titled What's the Matter with Kansas?, which asked why those rubes in flyover country keep voting for conservatives when it's against their economic interests....
(Excerpt) Read more at ronbosoldier.blogspot.com ...
Arnold was supposed to bring some semblance of salvation to California: what happened??
The fact that Calfornia has several large universities full of 18, 19 and 20 year olds. They tend to vote Democrat.
This is why Berkely and Santa Cruz is so socialist. Small college towns where the largest voting block are temporary residence.
Giving the vote to 18 years was a mistake.
California still thinks the rest of us will bail them out once they are completely broke. By then a new team ought to be in place in DC so good luck with that.
Anyone who thinks we’re not already bailing out California has not been paying attention.
Could we give it back to Mexico?
We’ll be glad to accept any assistance in helping rebuild it after we rid ourselves of the liberal elites, union thugs and illegal immigrants.
I would be happy to assist in any way, after the above has been taken care of. If CA gets bailed out, it will be time to leave. I don’t see how such a large budget deficit can be reduced on a state level. Especially if the present fiscal policies are not going to change. Even my state has been operating in the red for four years, and refuses to recognize they should have been doing something about it four years ago, before the choices needed are now more difficult, and painful.
Asians are about the smartest race on the planet, so it confounds me why the demographics show them voting democrat.
I know that the Filipinos are among the hardest working people on the planet, and in Hawaii, they are a consistent voting bloc for the republicans. Filipinos vote for low taxes.
As for the Indonesians, they’re always putting Jakarta before Jahora ( thank you Andy Levy - liked that one ).
Giving the vote to 18 years was a mistake.
A result of the age of military service, IIRC.
Couple the above with sufferage, and you have a really interesting voting block, of folks graduating out of the public school system, with a very slanted and uneducated view of what an election really means ten, or twenty, years down the road.
Fireproof suit on before posting.
Arnold doesn’t have a lot of room to maneouvre. He may believe, he may want to do, all manner of very good things, but he is still an elected representative. He cannot operate unless he takes people with him, and the people of California are, as has been stated, in large part illegal immigrants, racial ‘minorities’ who vote solid democrat, or guilt ridden white folk idealogically committed to self-destructive economic policies. California was a boom State at one time. It became the wealthiest and most dynamic State in the Union. Whole generations of Californians have grown up knowing only greatness and affluence. They look around them and they think that the wealth and greatness will be always there. Its almost like an economic birthright. Well, the bad news is that it isn’t. In this life you have to work to maintain what you have and work hard to expand it. And they haven’t been. And eventually, it will implode.
If 18 year is old enough to serve in the miltary then they should be old enough to vote. I understand the agrument but don’t agree with it.
We still require them to wait until 21 to buy adult beverages. The same argument could be used in this case as well.
I think I would rather allow 18 to drink and wait until they were 21 to vote.
They aren't thinking, and that's a lot of the problem. If anything resembling a logical thought accidentally wanders into their head, they chase it out as quickly and ruthlessly as most people would chase out a burglar in their home. New Age is based purely on emotion and a desire to just float along and experience life, rather than go out and live it.
No argument at all, in fact I would be tempted to go back to a time in history, when women had influence on the votes of their spouses and children, but no legal vote themselves.Male property owners OTOH had what amounted to an incentive to vote. Making things easier, for voters, lowering the voting age, and “giving” women the vote has only brought us to this point in time, and that is not necessarily good.
Unions got out the vote in MA
Some would have thought that Baker could have won—like Weld, etc., appealed to fiscal conservatives/moderates but socially a liberal—gay running mate, etc. But perhaps the “base”
abandoned him (under the same set of circumstances, we may get Vicky Kennedy as a Senator in 2 yrs); he seemed stiff)
and other reasons: Dems made ads showing Patrick as warm and
fuzzy while Baker was seen as a heartless CEO who would lay off a bunch of state workers (and if you were a state worker
or knew one, why would you vote for him?)...
The unions banded against him—an ad he ran showed what a friend Patrick was to the pinky-ring union people and
the point was made YOU could lose YOUR union- or state-
job under him. And then there was a ballot question that
proposed slashing the sales tax to 3 per cent from 6.5;
while a “stop the double tax on alcohol” bill worked,
this managed to bring out the union people, etc. and those
who were concerned that such cuts would be devastating.
Even Baker came out saying he would support a cut to 5 per cent, not 3. So the Dems and libs and union people came out to vote for Patrick and they checked off every single D on the ballot.
Bielat may have gotten a cong. seat had he run in the
10th. Perry got close but the neg. ads killed him. And in the 6th, such things as “an anti-Obama lawn sign” wrecked
the chances of Bill Hudak against arrogant incumbent
John Tierney despite Tierney’s wife being convicted of
money laundering. While some said Tierney didn’t run any positive ads, he did run at least one I saw, and people
were caught up in the Keep The Bums In mentality here.
“Lawn signs don’t vote”. If you only saw all the Hudak
signs that were out. Tierney signs got out too, at the end,
but for various reasons he won (maybe the city votes killed off the candidacy?) Many Hudak signs are still out there,
perhaps in defiance, but he did get caught up in the
Keep The Bums In mentality here
Hmm, what’s wrong with CA..
Too many imports into the state, both foreign and domestic.
We have illegals that have come in in hordes, and are not really prevented from voting, plus the refuse that came in seeking the twacked-out addlepated drug culture in the 1960’s and never left. Those folks came in from the rest of the US and created the mess that is the Bay Area. They stayed and festered and insinuated themselves into academia, media and legal system. That’s were we got the Boxers and Pelosis from (note that both of them are NOT natives!) This bunch has now raised a generation of kids that are a lot like they were.
CA already had a large enough share of leftists, but the counterculture of the 60’s adopting SF as its hometown created a magnet that drained the muck and mire from the rest of the US (with a few exceptions like MA and NY). The permissiveness of Hollywood created a second colony there, along with the nearly-accomplished reconquista of southern CA by illegals.
Even this mess was to some extent sustainable up until the “peace dividend” period of the early 1990s, when the huge defense industry present effectively was removed from California. The tech bubble helped some, but it’s no longer enough. Now it all comes down. Everything that constitutes a profitable major industry in CA is on its way down our out of the state. Defense is more or less gone, except for some remnants. Tech is moving to better business climates elsewhere as quickly as they can manage it. The car plants and steel mills and shipyards that were here are gone. Agriculture is being strangled by the state and Federal government through environmental regulation. Even the film industry is finding other places to do their work.
It’s a shame really. I love my native state, it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth land and climate-wise. I’ll miss it, as I’m leaving in roughly a month’s time.
Many people flub this analogy -- somehow equating nasty Republicans with "slave owners" and Democrats with "freedom."
And not all of those flubbers are liberals.
So I'm delighted to see you got it right.
But if we extend the analogy -- remember it was slave-owning Democrats who first declared their secession and then began shooting at Union forces.
Our side -- the good guys -- did not seceed, and did not start a Civil War.
Let's not forget that.
Six months of residence in California was all I could take in one lifetime.
Yes, it is a beautiful state with an excellent climate, however, the taxes are out of sight, the rents are a scandal and the price of houses out of the solar system.
I’d say the cost of living in California is twice that of my native state of Florida.
Also, massive unemployment, poverty and an unwashed army of bums everywhere.
California today reminds me of a third world country - a small rich upper class and a large poor lower class.
The California dream is a nightmare!
This is my take as well - IF (a big “if”) massive violence breaks out it will be the Left who will be the author.
Yeah I heard the rats lost the sign war in MA big time. Suburban Cook County IL as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.