[RedStateRocker]

In my observation it is more subtle than that,

I think a LOT of Californians are realistically conservative on fiscal issues (and annoyed to horrified by the irresponsibility of our legislature as any person should be) but much to the left on social issues, environment, homosexuality (prop 8 was really more a phenomena of a very well organized Mormon and Catholic coalition than widespread dislike of homosexuality), cannabis and interventionist foreign policy ( I do not know of anyone who actually gives a crap about Syria, for example).

Think of the typical ‘conservative’ as a hippie, or ex hippie, who now owns a business and has to pay taxes and deal with OSHA; not at all down with the “morality brigades” of the Bible Belt but justifiably suspicious of big government.

That is why Arnold played so well; he was in a lot of ways a typical blend of Californian values, fiscally conservative but socially liberal (that he proved to be an incompetent and dishonest putz is besides the point, they all roll that way out here but the time they get to sacto)

[fieldmarshaldj]

‘Cept Arnie wasn’t fiscally Conservative. He made Davis look like a spendthrift tightwad. He was an across-the-board Socialist.

[fr_freak]

I think a LOT of Californians are realistically conservative on fiscal issues...but much to the left on social issues, environment, homosexuality...

Nope, I'd say you have it exactly backwards. Californians, by and large, are more conservative on social issues, such as gay marriage, and less conservative on fiscal issues (this is excluding the hardcore right in CA, which always stands at a disadvantaged 40% or so). How is this possible in gay-friendly moonbeam country, you ask? This is because the minority groups, such as blacks and Mexicans, that the Democrats so far have snookered into being their bitches, are actually quite socially conservative. That is how Prop 8 got passed. The Mormon church did a fine job with advertising, but that didn't change people's minds; it only made otherwise Democrat voters aware of the true nature of the proposition. Black Americans don't want gay marriage. Mexican Americans don't want gay marriage. It is only white liberals that want gay marriage, and white liberals, as well as whites in general, are dwindling from a plurality in CA to a minority.

Meanwhile, the voters of CA never met a bond measure they didn't like. Bond propositions, from midnight basketball to psychotherapy for delta smelt traumatized by motorboats, pass almost unfailingly even while tax increases are universally defeated. That is because that same group that doesn't like "Adam and Steve" also demands that Uncle Sugar kick down with the free money. After all, it's just payback for all of the mean things that Hollywood says that tax-paying white people have done to them (and, of course, the white liberals think money is spewed not from the Fed's printing press, but from the gloriously-scented rear-end of the unicorn, which acts as Gaia's emissary).