The real reasons, aside from leftist politics, is the dependence on income taxes. In good times, California has a high income segment of the population that really churns out the money during booms. New York has a similar dynamic. In the days of George Dukemajian, the state accumulated a reserve fund and then rebated excess revenue to the taxpayers. That stopped when the Democrats got so powerful and had a Democrat as governor.

The second factor is the abysmal behavior of Republicans who chose secure seats in a gerrymander rather than principled opposition. Willie Brown figured them out with a few exceptions like Tom McClintock. Another reason for weak governors is the Bush fixation of loyalty above all else. Bill Jones, who was the only Republican holding statewide office, endorsed McCain in 2000. In 2002, he was stiffed by the national GOP for a cypher named Bill Simon, a sort of goofy RINO in the mold of GHW Bush, whose dad made millions in bond trading in the 80s. Simon went out as a sacrificial goat (a la Jurassic park) and Gray Davis came in sort of like Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The state energy crisis hit soon after and Davis froze like a deer in the headlights. Arnold was no improvement. Instead of waiting for the 2006 primaries to run his initiatives, he gave the Democrats an issue with the cost of the special election and they lost. If Bill Jones had been the nominee in 2002, he would have had a good chance of winning and a lot of this would never have happened. McClintock would have been better but he was unknown then statewide.

Jerry Brown really began the slide but Dukemajian was able to reverse it for a while. Pete Wilson was not much better than the Democrats. He raised taxes in the 1991 recession and the state was the last in the country to recover.

The legislature is more Democratic/liberal than it should be for three reasons: gerrymandering, illegal immigration, and a wildly biased news media.

California had been one of the primary destinations for illegal immigrants to the United States. Even if those immigrants couldn’t legally vote they still altered districts for the legislature, because the districts are drawn according to the census count of total population. This has given an edge to Democratic/liberal representation in the legislature as more districts are drawn to fit into areas of the State which already vote Democrat/liberal.

The Democratic edge has given them frequent opportunity to gerrymander election districts, which magnifies their advantage even more. Sadly when reapportionment is due, all too often a Democratic governor is holding office at the same time as the Democrats have majority control of the legislature, enabling them to gerrymander districts with ease. The Democrats (and their allies such as the SEIU) are quick to sabotage any efforts to get rid of gerrymandering.

This imbalance explains why the Democrats hold such a dominant position the legislature (near 2/3 in both houses) while at the same time Governors elections are much closer affairs. I estimate that the true divide in California is closer to 50/50 than the 2 to 1 domination in the legislature.

The final factor tipping things, which must not be underestimated, is the lazy, stupid, biased and agenda setting news media. I assume they mainly influence the vast disinterested non-partisan voting public, which in California amounts to the largest bloc of voters.

Perhaps Holland should also be added along with Sweden’s pull away from socialism. In light of Geert Wilders’ party winning four more seats in the election, the tides there are also turning.

“The Netherlands is waking up from a leftist nightmare, a nightmare of tremendously high taxes, crime, bad health care, headscarves and burqa’s, impoverishment, mass immigration and islamization.”

Blunt examples of the downward spiral such economic enterprises manifest, and yet Obama is still compelled to take us down that road.

In regard to California, until someone in Sacramento, left or right, speaks up about and fights against the stranglehold of the unions, the taxpayer doesn’t stand a chance.