Reply #28: You pretty much answered your own question. [View All]

[drumwolf]

I think it's both of those reasons combined, personally -- the fact that California has the most electoral votes AND the fact that it only recently became a Dem stronghold.

I'm a former New Yorker now living in the Bay Area, and I actually see more of a wingnut presence in California than I did in New York. Sure, you've got a lot of far-left radicals in SF and Berkeley, but you also have a substantial number of middle-class suburban families who are solidly Republican too. On the other hand, in NY, there may not be so many extreme-left types, but most of the rank-and-file voters here -- the ones who raise kids in the suburbs, the soccer moms -- are at least somewhat liberal and even the Republicans here are pretty socially tolerant.

I might point out that one major reason California turned Democrat in the first place was because of the GOP's anti-immigration platform in the mid-'90s which caused shitloads of Hispanics -- many of whom were apolitical before then -- to come out of the woodwork who became Dems. And Hispanics as a group aren't incredibly socially liberal. Many of them only turned Democrat because the GOP came across as the party that wanted to deport their asses back to Mexico.

It's unlikely right now that * will win California, but it's not by any stretch impossible.