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“Spectators at the Statehouse?” Collapse of the 2-party system in California.

As the result of the latest election, Democrats how hold the governorship and every other statewide office. The Democrats ALSO secured a supermajority in one, and possibly in BOTH houses of the California Legislature. SFGate.com says it THIS way:

If the future happens first in California, the Republican Party has a problem.

Not that the California Democrats will “rule” intelligently…. :-)

It wouldn’t be LIKE them! 😉

I try to always present a BALANCED view of California’s politics. After all, BOTH of the main political parties are pretty screwed up here! 😉 Lest there be any misinterpretation of the latest election results, I think that the results REALLY say that a majority of California’s voter think that the Democrats are screwed up LESS! 😉

According to that SFGate.com article, Democrats “…gained even more ground in Tuesday’s elections, picking up at least three congressional seats while votes continue to be counted in two other tight races — in one upset, Democrat Raul Ruiz, a Harvard-educated physician who mobilized a district’s growing swath of Hispanic voters, pushed out longtime Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack.”

“Republican leaders should look at California and shudder,” says Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 campaign and anchored former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election team in 2006. “The two-party system has collapsed.”

Republican voter registration has dipped so low — less than 30 percent — that the party’s future state candidates will be hobbled from the start.

After all, President Obama garnered more that 70% of the Hispanic and Asian vote and approximately 90% of blacks, all of which were essential ingredients in his coalition. Women (a MAJORITY of Americans) supported Obama over Romney nationally and “broke for the President” in California by 27 PERCENTAGE POINTS!

Only a GENERATION ago, California was a reliable Republican state in presidential elections and the home turf for presidents Richard (“I am not a crook.“) Nixon and Ronald Reagan! California is IMPORTANT in elections. After all, California is HOME to 1 in 8 Americans! :-)

What has changed?

In a word, “America!” :-)

The same DEMOGRAPHIC trends that continue to “bite the backsides” of moronic executives of large corporations, who laid off the Baby Boomers and now have NOBODY ( a lot of the “offshore workers” proved “unreliable” 😉 ) to replace the skilled workforce that the Baby Boomers represent, ALSO gave President Obama his re-election victory in a bad-but-slowly-improving economy! If California leads the nation in such demographic trends, what does California TELL us? SFGate.com says:

A surge in immigrants transformed the state, and its voting patterns. The number of Hispanics, blacks and Asians combined has outnumbered whites since 1998 in California, and by 2020 the Hispanic population alone is expected to top that of whites. With Latinos, for example, voter surveys show they’ve overwhelmingly favored Democratic presidential candidates for decades. Similar shifts are taking place across the nation.

“There are demographic changes in the American electorate that we saw significantly, first, here in California and Republicans nationally are not reacting to them,” said Jim Brulte, a former Republican leader in the California Senate.

“Romney overwhelmingly carried the white vote — 20 years ago, that would have meant an electoral landslide. Instead, he lost by 2 million votes” in the state, Brulte said.

Oh, BTW (“By The Way”), just so my statements won’t be misconstrued, I am VERY happy about the influx of immigrants into the United States. After all, we are ALL immigrants here (even the “Native Americans” who got here FIRST!). The influx of some of the “best and brightest” from all over the world (and even some of those who WEREN’T 😉 ) is what “makes American great!” In biology, diversity is strength!

Today, whites make up a little more than 40 percent of the population, while 2 in 10 residents are Asian and about 1 in 3 is Hispanic, according to the census.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter managed to collect about a quarter of the vote against Reagan in the county. But by 1996, with the county diversifying, Bill Clinton grabbed 38 percent of the vote, and Al Gore boosted that to 40 percent in 2000. This year, Obama won 44 percent of the vote in Orange County, according to preliminary returns.

This year, presidential candidates only visited California to “pick up their checks!” Romney bypassed California, to focus on Ohio and California. As a former Ohioan, I enjoyed telling a Facebook “friend-of-a-friend,” before the votes were counted, that “people in Ohio are smarter than you think they are!” I always tell schoolkids that I am “smarter than I look!” 😉 (Those of you in upper management who “don’t get” self-deprecating humor won’t “get” that one, either! 😉 ) Obama took the biggest electoral college prize in America, California’s 55 electoral votes, by almost a 21% margin!

SFGate.com further details the demographic changes:

Independents now outnumber Republicans in 13 congressional districts in California, a trend analysts predict will continue.

California counted more registered Republicans in 1988 than it does today, although the population has grown by about 10 million over that time. You’d have to go back to that year to find a Republican presidential candidate who carried the state, George H.W. Bush.

Surprisingly, Democrats continued to make gains in the state even at a time of double-digit unemployment, with polls showing that voters are unhappy with Sacramento and Washington. And it could get worse for the GOP. Republicans are trailing in two other House races in which the vote counting continues.

IMHO (“In My Humble Opinion”), Californians chose to tackle the BIGGER problem first, making sure that they had elected officials who GENERALLY are aligned with their social goals, postponing the SMALLER task, “bending the elected Democrats to the will of ‘The People,'” until a later date! After all, California has “bunch” of other problems, BESIDE the Democratic supermajority!

The state is saddled with a litany of problems, including a long-running budget crisis, massive, unfunded public pension obligations, tuition increases at California universities and growing demands for water, affordable housing and energy.

And the demographics, “they are a-changin’“….

More than half the young voters in the state, ages 18 to 39, are Hispanic, according to the independent Field Poll. Thirty-five percent are Asian. If you look into a classroom in the Los Angeles area — tomorrow’s voters — 3 of 4 kids are Hispanic.

California “is not just a large state, population-wise, it’s a trend-setting state,” said Schmidt, a public relations strategist. “It could be a glimpse of the future.”

I used to tell people in high tech that you really have, for the most part, two choices: you can either get up and “ride the wave” or you can get buried underneath it! “Surf’s UP!:-)

-Bill at

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