Although it is one of the most beautiful states in the union — okay, the most beautiful — California is nothing but ugly in the eyes of conservative America.
It could be a coastal thing: D.C. always goes Democrat, Vermont just elected a Socialist, butterfly ballots made pro-Gore Floridians weep, and Washington state is perceived as a haven of Starbucks-happy, flannel-sporting tree-huggers, as well as fertile breeding ground for ecoterrorists. The middle of America is viewed as the breadbasket of virtue, the cradle of morality tucked between the sinful flanks of the United States’ coastlines. Even Fox News’ Heartland with John Kasich is touted as bringing Midwest sensibility to the news, the important issues for the real people.
And there are the reader letters I routinely receive from people in Texas and thereabouts detailing how they “escaped” from California, as if they had to flee past the guards meandering among the desert tortoises in Joshua Tree and cut through electrified coils of barbed wire at Lake Havasu, lest they be caught and sent back to Blythe.
The Left Coast. People’s Republic of California. Mexifornia. Commiefornia. Yawn. I’ve heard it all.
And as a Los Angeles native who has both lived and traveled all over this union — and a conservative who has never strayed from the GOP at the ballot box — I feel it’s time to stand up for California.
Because let’s face the election results: The Democrats put state Treasurer Phil Angelides on the ticket, an uber-lefty picked by primary voters over the more moderate state controller, Steve Westly. As the rest of the nation squealed under the feet of a Democratic resurgence, California voters handed Angelides a 17-percentage point loss yesterday in favor of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (even if they also voted in favor of perpetual politician Governor/Mayor Moonbeam Jerry Brown in his race to become Attorney General Moonbeam — but hey, at least he’s entertaining). And in a particularly humiliating defeat for the Dems, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who lost to Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall election and campaigned this time on his personal weight-loss story, went down by 12 percentage points in losing the insurance commissioner race to GOP businessman Steve Poizner.
Californians also passed Jessica’s Law to clamp down on sex offenders by a whopping 70.5 percent and said “No” to the oil tax pushed by Bill Clinton (Prop. 87) by 55 percent, proving that everything Slick Willy touches does not turn into victory.
Frankly, the state’s not full of wackos, even if the legislature harbors a disproportionate share. Hollywood stars, appreciated for their contributions to a big state industry, are not our elected representatives (well, except for the governor). There are myriad, real problems with illegal immigration, but California also has the best Mexican food north of the border. There are problems with overcrowding and high housing prices, but that could easily be solved by putting a cap on the number of wannabe actors allowed to dribble in each year.
For all the looniness of the Bay Area, it’s at least pretty much a self-contained unit, a well-defined expanse of 156,000 square miles and 36 million people. In a September tally of state voter registration, 36 counties were majority Republican and 22 were Democrat — 14 of which were part of or bordered the Bay Area. This densely populated area contributes heavily to the 6.7 million registered Democrat majority held over the state’s 5.4 million registered Republicans.
Even though the state gave Kerry its electoral votes with 54 percent majority, and Los Angeles County went for Kerry (by 1.9 million votes to Bush’s 1.1 million), it’s worth noting that all of the counties surrounding L.A. County — places not lacking in population — went for Bush: Ventura County, San Bernardino County, Kern County, and GOP powerhouse (and Fox melodrama inspiration) Orange County. Further south, San Diego and Riverside counties also tipped their collective hats to Bush.
And for every action in California, there is an opposite reaction that may or may not be noticed by the state’s detractors. Many know by this point that Maywood, a little incorporated city south of downtown L.A., declared itself a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. Less well known is that the Escondido City Council (in San Diego County) recently approved an ordinance — the first of its kind in the state — banning landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.
Remember, California is the state that, in 1994, passed Proposition 184 by a whopping 72 percent in favor of the three-strikes law to get tough on criminals, and ten years later shot down Proposition 66, which would have watered down the law. Also in 1994, Californians passed Proposition 187 to deny taxpayer services to illegal immigrants (though the voters’ will was readjusted by the courts). In 1996, Californians passed Proposition 209 to end racial and gender preferences in public colleges and employment, which caused liberals to give a good gasp. Two years later, Proposition 227 to curtail bilingual education was favored by voters.
It’s not that I’m a brainwashed, insulated, hair-twirling California girl. I’ve visited about half the states in the union, a bit of flying but mostly road tripping in grand California style, stopping at little one-horse towns and diners where smoking is (unfortunately) still allowed. What always strikes me is that the majority of California isn’t all that different from the rest of the good ol’ USA. There are farmers markets on Sundays, county fairs with pungent livestock, annual festivals statewide for every kind of crop under the sun, roadside stands hawking wares from the state’s 88,000 farms, and tasting rooms for our 1,600 wineries (and you wonder why we’re so happy). Californians appreciate healthy lifestyles (though the colonic stereotype is way overblown), but the 2006 L.A. County Fair recently finished its run having whipped up 24,000 deep-fried Oreos and 6,000 deep-fried Twinkies for Angelenos looking to harden some arteries in style.
So it would be nice if the rest of the country could let up a bit on branding California as a giant leftist moral vacuum that threatens to suck the heartland into its wicked clutches. This state isn’t as blue as Smurf Land, and not everybody thinks Rosie O’Donnell is a misunderstood genius. The “California Conservative” isn’t generally as conservative as right-wingers in other parts of the nation, but does stand for smaller government and personal responsibility. California Republicans work hard for the party; it would help if the party would put up stronger candidates and strategize a bit better. And it would really help politically if Mother Nature did some redistricting and a big quake cleanly cut off the Bay Area into its own independently-governed archipelago — but the Midwest tourists would sure pine for the Golden Gate Bridge.
And we preemptively apologize for foisting Nancy Pelosi on the nation.
— Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She blogs at GOP Vixen .