B.S. Report–Yesterday, Republicans picked up between 60-64 seats in the House, 6 Senate seats, 10 governorships and hundreds of state legislature seats. Undoubtedly, it was a historic election for the GOP which included gains in nearly every state with the obvious and notable exception of California.
And that’s a shame because California is on life-support and instead of reaching for a life-raft the electorate may have opted to drown. California, so often the home of unpreventable natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and floods, doesn’t need to add disasters of their own making.
While Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina wouldn’t have necessarily turned the state around, it’s depressing when you compare them to the people who defeated them. They lost to a California Democratic Party machine that is so intertwined and beholden to unions that our elections have become almost foregone conclusions.
It was a discouraging night for Californians who wanted to change direction and push for more fiscal responsibility and less government intrusion. But it’s all the more painful when the population votes for their own demise. And that’s what happened with two ballot propositions.
Take Proposition 23 for example. This measure would have put global warming legislation on a temporary hold for the good of the economy, but it was soundly defeated thanks to numerous powerful lobbies and their environmental zealot followers. This will certainly be an enormous job killer.
That was awful enough but voting to approve Proposition 25, which grants the California state legislature more power and authority over our personal lives, well that takes the proverbial cake.
Specifically, it changes the rule requiring the state legislature to obtain a two-thirds majority before action can be taken on any budget-related legislation. That has now been reduced to a simple majority meaning all it takes to raise our taxes is a vote of over 50%!
In short, the positive results seen elsewhere in the country did not translate to California. Perhaps this election is a signal to many of us here that it’s time to pack our bags and move to more hospitable environs. It’s clear that it will be a long time before California can once again rightfully be referred to as “The Golden State.”
Well the backwards hippies from Colorado should join the club. The Dems came out in force, and though we had some good wins, we lost the Senate race that was considered in the bag and badly lost the governor’s race where we thought we stood a strong chance.
Hi Laura,
Yeah, Colorado was rough. I too was especially bummed out over Buck losing because he’s a strong conservative. But despite our own states’ failings we have to look at the big picture and overall it was a terrific night…in most places.
I don’t think that the Senate loss is a big deal. We have so many wishy-washy “moderates” in there that they probably wouldn’t have been a reliable voting block anyway. Also, it does deprive “0″ of using the excuse that he couldn’t govern because the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. All the best.
Republicans need to understand California is NOT Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, etc…You can’t run far right social conservative lunatics CA. like you could in those other 3….
The #1 reason i switched from Republican to Democrat about a decade ago was because of the social conservatives/religious right….I depise those people….I thought conservatism is supposed to be about LESS govt., well social conservatism is as intrusive as it gets….It’s the furthest thing from less govt…
But getting back to CA…If republicans are ever going to be competitive again in CA., then you’re going to have to come up with social moderates, otherwise you will continue to lose elections, badly..
Rick,
I know there are a lot of people out there who agree with you but please point to an area other than abortion where you fear the religious right is trying to impose their will upon society. Rick, do you believe that the religious right is more intrusive than the socialist left? Is it the religious right that has reached into your bathroom to control the flushing of your toilets? Is it the religious right that has outlawed certain light bulbs? Is it the religious right that has commandeered your health care? Is it the religious right that wants to pass all sorts of insane environnmental legislation that destroys jobs and further limits your freedom?
Rick, be honest. Who is it that wants to control every aspect of our lives from the temperature we keep our homes at to the food we’re allowed to eat? In New York, the government controls the amount of salt restaurants are permitted to use. In San Francisco, government has banned McDonald’s Happy Meals. In Central California government has for years shut off the water to hundreds of family farms to satisfy their loony environmental zealots and putting thousands of people out of work.
As for California nominating “moderates” that can win instead of conservatives, I understand your point. It may just be that California is too far gone to save. California is losing its most productive people and businesses in droves because they can no longer stand the oppressive government and the anti-business mentality and the high taxation that the state now represents. As a life-long Californian who is considering leaving the state, I can tell you this first-hand. Thanks Rick for taking the time to write.
To the BS Report,
Though we probably disagree on everything, LOL, your reply at least showed we can disagree without being disagreeable….Nothing wrong with good, honest, civil disagreement…
In your first paragraph about the flushing of the toilets, certain light bulbs, was that hyperbole, or did that refer to something that truthfully happened, as I’ve not heard of anyone worried about toilets and lightbulbs..
About the banning of happy meals, i agree that was silly….Mayor Newsom vetoed it, but he was overridden by the Board of Supervisors…
Sadly, the religious right is WAAAAAY more intrusive than ANYONE on the left, moderate left, and ultra far left….Some areas where the religious right are trying to impose their morality include, but are not limited to: abortion, gay marriage, pornography, music, Hollywood films, radio hosts they dislike (remember Howard Stern was kicked off Clear Channel in 2004), etc…One way the right can impose their morality on everyone is by stacking the courts with far right judges who agree with their world view…This all started back in the Reagan administration…Then when Clinton became POTUS, republicans started a trend where well-qualified nominees were blocked and/or filibustered from receiving a full senate vote….And republicans have gone over-board with blocking nominees of President Obama, they are blocking nominees who cleared the Senate Judiciary with 19-0 votes….President Obama, for the most part has named all moderates to the court….There is one liberal, Goodwin Liu (nominated for a 9th. Circuit position), who has the right in a frenzy….Professor Liu truly is a mainstream nominee (though i have a feeling you will disagree with that), who even has the backing of former Clinton prosecutor Ken Starr and former Bush attorney Richard Painter….Now, the right loves to bring up the Bork hearings, but let the record show, Mr. Bork was NEVER filibustered or blocked…He had a fair hearing and he recieved a full senate vote, where 6 republicans voted against his confirmation…
I apologize for going off on a tangent, but yes, the religious right is trying to impose their will on people, and one big way they can do this is by stacking the courts with far right nominees..
Rick,
I appreciate your reply, and yes, we disagree on everything. I mentioned toilets and light bulbs among the many ways that the left imposes their world view on society. You must know that it’s largely the environmental left that supports legislation such as phasing out the incandescent light bulb (GE closed their last manufacturing plant just a few months ago) and replacing them with fluorescent bulbs that are less desirable to most users. As for toilets, there are strict regulations that forbid us from having flush toilets with more than the allowable 1.6 gallon tank. You are forbidden from installing one even if you want to.
Rick, I’m not talking from strictly a Democrat-Republican divide but a liberal-conservative divide whereby those on the left believe in more government control over our lives and conservatives believe in less. I’m a Conservative…I believe that, by and large, the government that governs least governs best. My objection stems from the basic standpoint that less government control over our lives is better and all we need to prove this is to look at what it is government attempts to do, and how successful they’ve been at doing it. So, I ask you…Just what is it that government does well? And does it do it better than the private sector? And, most importantly, is it something that government has been authorized to do by our Constitution?
Rick, I’m not a religious guy but I don’t share your fear of the religious right. For the most part, they haven’t the power to compel me to do anything. It is government that has that power. You mentioned that, if the religious have their way, they would impose their views on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, music, etc. You’re partly correct in that they would like to influence the greater society towards their viewpoint. This is no different than any other voting bloc. Forgetting the kooks that exist in every group, they are legally using whatever clout they have to influence the electorate. I understand that you disagree with their views but that’s life.
Now, I think you have your argument backwards because who is it that is trying to force their view on society and its citizens…for example, is it those who support gay marriage or those who are trying to protect an institution that has existed as the bulwark of society for over 2,000 years? Though you’re obviously sympathetic to gay marriage, it is those who are protecting the traditional marriage that are under attack, and are being forced to defend.
Again, we obviously see things from the opposite spectrum even with regards to the Courts. I believe in the Constitution as it is written, but unfortunately, it is liberals that have rendered the Constitution useless with the idea that it is “living.” You must admit, to say that the Constitution is “living” is simply a ploy used by those who wish to rewrite it without going through the amendment process. This end-run around Constitutional limitations enables liberals to impose their vision of the world on the rest of us regardless of whether they have that ability to do so at the ballot box. We’ve seen that over and over again in California as ballot initiatives are constantly being overturned (almost always by liberals) when they don’t like the election results.
I listened to Howard for many years and I remember when he was yanked off…I believe it was 6 Clear Channel stations. He maintained the rest of his stations in the other markets. Listen, Clear Channel had the right to wimp out and pull his show–I’m not saying I would have done that but that was an example of the free market in action. Those stations apparently had enough complaints, or were scared of losing advertisers, or whatever other reason they may have had…but they decided to replace him, and that was their right. Who is pushing to institute speech in the talk radio area today–it’s liberals, of course. Where are speech codes instituted across the country–why, on liberal college campuses. It is the left that tries to control speech far more than the right.
Rick, I’ll close by saying that I do not fear the religious right, I fear an all-powerful government that is out of control in every area: political, social and economic. Thanks again for the tone of your response and for taking the time to write. Happy holidays and all the best to you.
BS Report,
The republican party of today is drifting further and further to the right…They are purging moderate members from the party…Gov. Schwartzeneggar is the only moderate i can think of (Lincoln Chafee was another but he lost his senate race in 2006)…..Subsequently, many republicans share the views of the religious right and they in my view ARE trying to impose their morality on everyone….Again, that’s just something we’ll probably never agree on….Why do you think the right is so focused on filling the courts with people who share their world view on everything and why they are blocking all of President Obama’s nominees…
I’m not a lawyer, but i don’t subscribe to the far right view of the constitution, “original intent” as that is akin to legislating from the grave….Seriously, people like Scalia want to look at what the founders, who’ve been dead over 200 years, thought…..I mean, the country has changed JUST a bit since the colonial days of Philadelphia 1787…
And i politely disagree about the left controlling speech…Other than perhaps boycotting advertisers of people like Limbaugh, Beck, etc., which right wing groups do as well, i don’t see any serious effort by the left to try to take anyone off the air…
I can say this til I’m blue in the face, but social conservatives truly want to impose their views on everyone….It’s more than just their own personal beliefs, they want to IMPOSE their beliefs on society and that is why they’re dangerous…
As far as Howard Stern, I have listened to him about 15 years, I actually think the show is the best on Sirius…He doesn’t have to worry about censorship and the show now is better than ever in my view…
Rick,
Times are cyclical…When you say that the Republicans are drifting farther to the Right, you mean over the past twenty-five years since Reagan was in office. What you’re basically saying is that you don’t agree with Conservatism. I disagree because I want less government, but I understand that there are many people like yourself who want huge European-style government, and don’t agree in the limited government of the Founders. The Democrats are our new Socialist party–they’ve moved so far to the left that JFK wouldn’t recognize them. Yet you, and the lib media, never describe the Dems in terms as being”far” Left extremists even though they’ve “drifted” much further than the Right has. And Obama is the most radical departure from American values that we’ve ever had in a U.S. President.
What you call “legislating from the grave,” us originalists would call “fixed rules.” Ideally, following the Constitution as written eliminates legislating from the bench. All human beings have biases and we’re all imperfect. That’s more reason to hold judges to the letter of the law instead of granting them vast latitude to force their vision of the world on the rest of us. For the Constitution to mean anything, the rules must not be ever-changing. Although the country has changed human nature remains as fixed as ever. Many of those in power will still abuse it just as those in power did 200 years ago or 2,000 years ago. The Constitution is not out-of-date and there is an amendment process that allows for the opportunity to change it.
As for attempting to control speech, I still contend that the right doesn’t hold a candle to the left in controlling speech. Michael Moore can speak at any college campus in the country without fear. On the rare occasion that a conservative is even invited to speak on a college campus (85% of speakers are from the left) many of them risk being shouted down or having something thrown at them, and many of them must travel with bodyguards to protect them from the “tolerant” left you boast of.
Rick, again you saying until you’re “blue in the face” that the Right wants to impose their view on society doesn’t grant them the power to do so. However, Leftists believe in government uber alles and, unfortunately, they do have the power to impose their views on the rest of us because Democrats in government share their views and have that power.
Again, Rick, plainly we disagree on the most basic principles of what this country is all about. America, in my view, is a celebration of the individual and not the collective. This is a country that in the past has always valued the life of the individual and his ability to pursue his own desires in a legal fashion, largely unfettered by government interference. It honored private property and viewed government as a necessary evil and not as the primary provider of sustenance and charity. When and if this viewpoint fails is when America loses its “exceptionalism” and becomes just another place on the map. Rick, thanks again for writing and I guess we’ll agree to politely disagree on the vast chasm between our views. All the best.
My good people at BS Report,
Please tell me you were just talking smack when you said “Obama is the most radical departure from American values that we’ve ever had in a U.S. President”….Perhaps instead of this being Dec. 1, you are excited about spring (opening of baseball season and the NCAA National Championship) and thought this was April 1, hence the April Fools joke?..
All kidding aside, President Obama is a centrist….Howard Dean, whom I wish was POTUS, is a liberal…Here’s why Obama is a centrist:
- HCR is a very centrist bill…No public option or single payer….Nixon’s attempt at HCR was more liberal..
- Very moderate SCOTUS and Court of Appeals nominations….Yes, the far right will say 9th. Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu is far left, but to them, anyone left of Scalia or Thomas is far left…In the real world, Liu is a very mainstream nominee…And don’t get me started on Elena Kagan, Justice Stevens was far more liberal than her….
- President Obama has reached out to republicans (WAY more so than Bush ever reached out to Democrats) and has appointed several to high level positions…Also, offered a position to Senator Gregg, who declined the job…
- President Obama has been 2nd. Amendment friendly, even signing law permitting firearms in national parks….(Personally, 2nd amendment issues don’t concern me at all, i don’t own a gun, have never used one, but i understand this is important issue for many)…
- President Obama hasn’t raised taxes on anyone..That’s a fact, right wing blogoshpere might say otherwise, but you know the famous saying “you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts”….
- Hasn’t repealed DADT, GITMO hasn’t closed…
I’m so disappointed in Obama i don’t know where to begin, yet i will absolutely vote for him in 2012 because i know the republican alternative will be far worse, and WAY further right….
All the best to you to….Have a great holiday season!…