Free Republic

With their registrations sinking and their political clout withering, California Republicans have come out of the November election in danger of slipping into political irrelevance across much of the state. "There's been a broad repudiation of traditional conservative Republicans in California," said Tony Quinn, a former GOP analyst and co-editor of the California Target Book, which focuses on political contests in the state. "There are almost no areas in the state that can be considered safely Republican anymore." Since 2004, Republican registration has dropped by more than 317,000 in the state, while Democrats have picked up 563,000 new voters. Five...

Tony Quinn is co-editor of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan analysis of state legislative and congressional elections. Lost in the aftermath of September 11 was the enactment of new district lines for California’s 120 legislative districts and 53 House seats. The once-a-decade redistricting had been expected to generate political heat and partisan fireworks, but this year’s exercise passed with almost no one noticing. That’s because both political parties early on agreed that this year the reapportionment process would be a status quo redistricting in which each party kept the existing number of seats. It was, in effect, a bipartisan...

'Curtain up! Light the lights! You got nothing to hit but the heights!" Arnold Schwarzenegger might not sound like Ethel Merman, but he's belting out her song as the curtain rises on the November special election. He's gambling as Merman puts it in the 1960's Broadway hit "Gypsy," that his "lucky star is due." And soon we'll know whether "everything's coming up roses" for Arnold and the GOP. With a month to go until the Nov. 8 vote, the oddest thing about this election is that it is not really about the four initiatives he's endorsed, nor the four others...