In the wake of Jerry Brown’s election, Barbara Boxer’s re-election, and now San Francisco banning Happy Meals, of all things, Allahpundit asks:

Semi-serious question for California conservatives (this means you, Patterico): Why are you still there? If it’s a money thing, where you simply can’t afford to leave right now, I understand. If it’s not a money thing, then why? The weather can’t be so great that it’s worth enduring another four years of single-party Democratic government driving the state deeper into a financial sinkhole at the behest of their union patrons.

Of course, there are more California conservatives than just me . . . and I think all of them (all five of them) read this blog. So rather than answer the question, I throw it open to my conservative readers who live in California: why are you still here? (I saw that some of you touched on this question today in comments to other threads, but even if you already answered the question, please do me a favor and repeat your answer below. I’d like to have a collection of answers in one place.)

P.S. For some of you, the answer is: “I am moving away” (or “I already moved away.”) I am interested in hearing those stories as well.

P.P.S. I do answer the question in comments.

Today Kamala Harris declared victory in the race for California Attorney General, a race in which my boss Steve Cooley declared victory last night. Which one of them is right remains unclear, and may remain that way for days or even weeks:

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, the Republican hopeful was trailing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by 14,838 votes. With thousands of provisional or questioned ballots still left to be counted across the state, the race was literally too close to call.

. . . .

Kevin Spillane, senior consultant for Cooley’s campaign, said there’s a long way to go before any conclusions can be drawn. He noted Cooley is trailing by just two-tenths of a percentage point.

“There are over 1 million provisional and absentee ballots yet to be counted,” Spillane said. “The race for attorney general will not be decided for at least another couple of weeks and potentially could go until the official certification-of-vote deadline on December 3.

Meanwhile, we have another nail-biter in Alaska, where the counting of write-in ballots begins next week. The Lieutenant Governor claims that write-in votes for Miller won’t count, to which Allahpundit responds:

With all the talk of write-ins up there, there may well be a chunk of Miller voters who went into the booth thinking that writing someone in was the only option. I can’t wait to see how Alaska’s going to justify tossing out otherwise valid ballots bearing his name when the legal standard in the state is to follow the intent of the voter. Whether he’s on a preapproved list or not shouldn’t matter; in fact, I’ve had friends in New York write in “Allahpundit” as a gag and it ended up in the official returns. Intent is what counts, not some list.

Intent must be clear to govern, in my opinion — but if intent is the standard of the state, intent is what must control. We’ll have none of this ad hoc crap like they tried to pull in Florida in 2000, or there will be hell to pay.

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; send your tips here.]

One nice result last night is that voters in Iowa chose to throw  out of office three of the judges who were involved in the recent decision granting a right to gay marriage in that state:

Voters in Iowa chose to remove three high court justices who helped make Iowa the first Midwestern state to permit same-sex marriage.

The vote marks the first time a member of the Iowa Supreme Court has been rejected by the voters under the current system that began in 1962.

Under the voting system in Iowa, each of the three justices up for retention — Chief Justice Marsha Ternus, David Baker and Michael Streit — needed simply to get more “yes” votes than “no” votes in the election to be elected for another eight-year term. They faced no opponents. None of the judges raised money for the campaign.

While all seven justices on the court ruled with Ternus, Baker and Streit, those three were the only ones whose seats were up for retention. None of them received the 50 percent “yes” vote needed to remain on the bench.

(Source.)  Iowa courts operate on the so-called Missouri plan where a committee nominates judges that are picked by the governor and then, after serving a year, start to face retention elections.  This is touted by the judiciary itself as being superior to straight elections because

(more…)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; send your tips here.]

The Washington Post reported the other day that there was another shooting at a military building, this time at a U.S. Coast Guard recruiting center in Woodbridge, Virginia.  I decided not to blog about it until they got ballistics back on it and, well, we got the answer: this is the same gun used in the other attacks.

As usual, the vandalism was done late at night or early in the morning, and the shooter only did property damage—he or she doesn’t even seem interested in harming people.  The only deviation from previous cases is I don’t see any Marine Corps connection.

And it is worth noting that nothing happened at the Marine Corps marathon.  Which is probably a good sign that this person really won’t try to hurt people, but nonetheless, this has to be stopped.  This person might be doing some mere vandalism as protest; or this might be some kind of dry run for something more serious.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

Right now it looks like we picked up 60 House seats and 6 Senate seats — enough to take control of the House and send Nancy Pelosi back to commercial air travel.

It was a night of victories but mixed blessings. While we sent Russ Feingold packing, we couldn’t shake Harry Reid, and we traded Mike Castle for Chris Coons. Rubio cruised to victory, but write-in Lisa is ahead of Joe Miller in a race that may take weeks to decide. We picked up at least 10 Governorships, but entrenched Democrats like Barney Frank, Pelosi, and Maxine Waters remain in Congress. As Jim Geraghty says: “[T]his is the most frustrating overwhelming landslide victory of all time.”

But a landslide it was. Obama is going to have a tougher time, and this was a huge pickup for Republicans.

Meanwhile, in California . . .

. . . we sent Governor Moonbeam back to Sacramento. We sent Senator (but you can call her “Senator”) Boxer back to D.C. And, worst of all, we did away with the requirement of a 2/3 majority to raise taxes. Hello, tax increases!! [UPDATE: Kevin M. notes in comments that I got this wrong — thank goodness! We no longer need a 2/3 majority to pass a budget — but a 2/3 majority is still needed to raise taxes. It’s an odd twist that I frankly had not realized when I voted on it — but it means that the result is nowhere near as bad as I thought it was.]

About the only sane thing Californians did was reject Proposition 19, which would have legalized pot (and would have made pot smokers a protected class, members of which could have sued their employers for discrimination against their toking).

More locally, a Rancho Palos Verdes measure (Measure P) to expand Marymount College failed, and my friend Alan Schneider looks to be on his way to becoming a judge. Both are good results indeed.

All in all, a very good night — but not quite the night I had hoped for.