Posted on 11/15/2010 6:56:02 PM PST by Korah
On Tuesday, November 2, voters across the country turned out in droves to give Republicans control of the House of Representatives
GOP wins in the U.S. Senate trimmed the Democratic majority, and over 675 State legislative seats were taken from Democrats nationwide. So historic was the win that the Minnesota Senate will be run by Republicans for the first time in that state's history, and Alabama will be in GOP hands for the first time since reconstruction.
But what happened to California?
Are Californians really so liberal that they would elect a man who was once known as "Governor Moonbeam" back into the highest position in the state? Is Barbara "Don't call me Ma'am" Boxer so revered that she would win as easily as she did?
The results in California left many across the country scratching their heads wondering what happened in the Golden State. Was it something in the water? Was it negative advertising?
A careful analysis of numbers from the California Secretary States office may reveal the true reason California remains in Democratic control.
(Excerpt) Read more at ChicoER
Well yesterday when I went to the Doctor, I found out that the my Doctor's Secretary did not vote. darn it, she goes to my Church even. Well I gave her a piece of my mind.
Then this a afternoon I was talking to my neighbor and she told me that she and her husband forgot to vote. Forgot?
Well I gave her a piece of my mind also, because just a Month ago I was standing out front talking with both her and her husband about the election. They told me they are Republican and that they agreed with me about everything and that they couldn't wait to vote Boxer out.
Her husband even told me that he remembered when Jerry Brown was governor and that he could not stand the idea of him being elected again.
Then I read this article, and now I am real angry. What is it about Republicans in Ca? Why would any republican not vote?
There aren’t enough Republicans in California to win elections without unaffiliated voters. Most of the unaffiliated in the state lean to the left in one way or another.
Low GOP turnout equals voter fraud
Looking at the Secretary of State numbers there are more than enough Republicans that they should have won if they just voted
Instead of the usual dem trick of producing votes out of thin air (and cemeteries) maybe they figured out a way to disappear a bunch of republican votes.
I saw a story earlier today about Connecticut that made me think of this.
There shouldn't have been any area where Republicans were not enthusiastic to get out and vote. Even if you didn't like the GOP candidate in Cali the chance to bounce Boxer should have brought republicans out in droves.
The major shift in votes in seniors should have helped as well.
I am hoping some sharp Freepers can dig in to it.
The GOP missed a good opportunity in California. 86,000 of the commie ‘RATS from over there were in Arizona casting “provisional” ballots for the “medicinal” marijuana crowd.
When the choice is to vote for a liberal with an R behind their name or a liberal with a D behind their name whats the point.
California is the only state that had no Democrat incumbent lose. Every other state had Democrats losing all the way down to the city levels. Ca is the only one that did not.
As I said, I know three registered Republicans WHO did not vote!
Where is the voter fraud there?
They were lazy, and so they did not vote. Multiply that by all of Ca, and this article is correct. Republicans did not vote!
What is it about Republicans in Ca? Why would any republican not vote?
You said it in the first sentence. If I were a Californian I wouldn't have bothered to vote for Carly Fiorina or Meg Whitman either. Party loyalty is hardly the bottom line for evaluation of the principles, character, and competence of a candidate.
Thus the Tea Party.
There are two million more registered Dems than Pubs in CA. That’s a hard margin to overcome.
This is what happens when the GOP Leadership is Democrat-Lite and the candidate at the top of the ticket is only slighly GOP
Why vote for the faux Democrat when you can have the real thing?
THe failed logic driving the Pete Wilson wing of the CA GOP will continue to drive the GOP into the ground here until some conservative(s) wrest control of the party back where it belongs.
A Pox on them all!
I know many will claim that the candidates the Republican party had were not all that great. I would agree with that, well except for Carly Fiorina. But to not vote is to vote for a Democrat.So where did I say what you say I did?
It’s unbelievable how Reagan won in 1966. Did he charm the electorate or did all of the “good people” in CA leave the state?
Republicans who did not vote, just ended up helping the Democrats win. All those who did not vote should not complain.
1. The party establishment is run by the libs. It doesn't promote or support conservative candidates. This drives down conservative turnout in the primaries.
2. Because of (1), both of the party's candidates at the top of the ticket were the more liberal of the two top contenders. This reduces the difference between the party candidates and leads to voter indifference.
3. Because of gerrymandering congressional and state legislative races are uniformly non-competitive. If you are in a democratic district, the democrat wins. If you are in a republican district, the republican wins - usually with 70% of the vote. This doesn't exactly encourage high turnout or grass roots participation and both parties are equally guilty of working to protect "their" safe seats.
4. As a result of all of the above, a lot of conservatives have just given up on the republican party. Between Whitman and Brown for instance you had two liberals running against one another. I used to be a solid Republican voter. This time I ended up splitting my vote about equally between the republicans, the libertarians and the AIP. If the Republicans want my vote they'll have to run candidates who don't turn my conservative stomach.
But Jerry brown was OK for you because you voted for him by not voting for Meg.
Now what was your reason for not voting for Fiorina?
Then what about Damnon Dunn? He is a Christian Conservative I know because I met him and he never talked like a lib.
Actually did vote for her but not Meg. I do believe Carley would have gone into the McCain Gramnisty camp once she got there though.
And your right she was pro life vs the abortionist loving boxer
Republicans who did not vote, just ended up helping the Democrats win. All those who did not vote should not complain.
Whats to complain about? After Arnold put the smell of feces on “R” in the state might as well go for the real thing.
And he was such a darling of the “R” establishment.... wanted to modify the constitution they did so he could run for prez.
Most of the land mass of CA is not liberal but the high vote blocks are in LA, SF, Sac, Mt View etc..where the larger populations are.
I tried to post a response on the ChicoEr, but the postings were denied with the following message:
Comment Submission Error
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Since they say my “Text entered was wrong”, I’ll post it here instead:
The problem may be at least in part something else entirely different than voter apathy. We moved out of California in part because of the blatant vote fraud which happened to us in a previous election.
After years of voting without incident, the polling place was changed for our voting precinct. When I arrived to vote and presented my same voter registration card and California driver’s license that had beeen valid for a number of previous years and elections, the poll officials very rudely denied me the right to vote and threatened me with police arrest by the Sheriff’s Deputies if I did not immediately leave the polling place. They did all of this without giving me any chance to speak or even react with anything but momentary confusion about what was taking place.
As I walked out of the back porch where the polling booths were setup, I stopped as I walked by the garage door where the computer printout was posted for the public to view with all of the names and addresses of voters registered to vote at this precinct polling place. In all of the previous elections my name and address appeared on this report. For this election, my name and address as a registered voter was missing. In their place, however, were the names of illegal aliens registered as voters at my home’s address.
How do I know they were illegal aliens? Some months prior to the election, the California Department of Motor Vehicles mailed letters to my address, and they were addressed to the same Hispanic names which appeared in place of my name on the registered voters list months later. The DMV used window envelopes for these letters, and you could not help but see that the contents were California driver’s licenses issuedd to Hispanics using my private home’s address as their legal address. Since they certainly did not live at my address or in my home, I tried to report the violations of the law to the law enforcement officers.
As I attempted to report the illegal activity, my telephone calls were transferred from one office to the next, often with the government worker expressing hostility at my attempting to report my complaints. The California Department of Motor Vehicles denied having any jurisdiction. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department denied having any responsibility and referred me to the district attorney, but they did suggest they might want to investigate me for tampering with the U.S. Mail. The district attorney denied having any responsibility and said to contact the California Attorney General. The California Attorney General’s representative was scathingly hostile, refused to help me report the illegal activity, and once again suggested they might be interested in pursuing some kind of legal action against me for opening someone else’s mail. They slammed the phone down before giving me any opportunity to respond with the explanation that the letters remained unopened and had not been tampered with by anyone.
After being unlawfully denied the right to vote while fictitious voters were allowed to cast ballots in the election, I once again made the rounds of attempting to report the vote fraud and make my complaints. Once again every office from the voting authorities to the California Attorney General’s office refused to take a report of the crimes and attempted to intimidate me with suggestions I could be investigated and arrested for interfering with the criminal activity I was trying to report.
My problems are not at all unique in California. When talking with other people, they described their own experiences with vote fraud. The Republican Party in Orange County has complained about vote fraud in their county for decades and filed a number of lawsuits. Even when they managed to get a favorable verdict, the Democrats on the Appellate courts overturned the case/s on controvrsial technicalities they claimed existed.
In other states around the nation we have seen convictions and reports of massive vote fraud being commiitted by the Democratic Party’s members and/or supporters too numerous to detail here. Among the vote frauds being reported have been the destruction of absentee ballots and vote by mail ballots that favored candidates other than the Democratic Party candidate. Especially repugnant has been the extensive efforts of the Democratic Party to invalidate absentee ballots and deny the right to vote for the men and women serving in the armed services overseas in combat and here in the United States. You really have to wonder just how many California voters were denied the right to vote or had their votes unlawfully invalidated and destroyed to commit vote fraud on behaldf of the Democratic Party’s candidates? Were many of their votes not counted because of vote fraud? It happened to me.
I hate to state the obvious but having lived in many california locals, one can only conclude that the bulk of californians are simply gut wrenchingly STUPID.
Inhabitants have done everything possible to destroy their own state. There is nothing - no business, no landmark, no institution - nothing worth saving. Any sane individual should jump to the eastern side of the San Andreas. Split the west side off and give it to China in return for our debt.
“California is the only state that had no Democrat incumbent lose. Every other state had Democrats losing all the way down to the city levels. Ca is the only one that did not.”
Wrong, Mass. reelected all their imcumbents. Mass is another brain dead state.
The Gop voter was too busy employing workers and not growing marijuana to sell to other liberals.
The base of the voters hat have kep the Gop going have been crapped on spiton, and then told they are the problem.. and then you slam those same folks here..
a couple comments down thread make you sound like others who were here chastising anyone here that didn’t support the moderates that ended up as the candidates and got their clocks cleaned everytime..
nothing new.. most of us have clothes pins and voted for the ones we were sold and are not the ones you need to be challenging here.. aRnie didn’t need my vote and he didn’t get it, ever.. Meg and Carly don;t have TEA party bone in their bodies, so what do the party faithful do? pick them over conservatives, in the primaries, like I said nothing new.
Oh, and did I forget to mention the CaGoP leadership is a bunch of losers, losers with connections to the 19th hole country club elites.. they saw the TEA party coming and turned their backs on them, much as the ational leadership, concidence?
The California GOP needs to learn the lesson or keep suffer the same outcome over and over again. Repubicans gave Rino Arnie a chance and he was just as bad as any other flaming socialist in the State.
Mealy mouth, liberal Rinos are not inspiring voters. Either stand up to the Left or sit down and don’t waste the time and money. The GOP effictiveness of urging people to vote for the lessor of two evils is gone. Evil is Evil when it comes to killing the middle class and freedom.
No, improbably high Democrat turn-out equals voter fraud (logically). This sounds more like Republicans are dispirited and psychologically beaten-down. Not surprising, given the venue.
And what about the other 100 issues a Senator deals with?
Carly was not a conservative when you look at the total package. Carly bragged about favoring the repeal of DADT, was pro-amnesty, pro-DREAM Act, pro-green energy and "green jobs", talked of more regulation and meddling by the feds, would not renounce global warming and touted cap and trade during the presidential election. She said she was pro-life but would not consider it a litmus test for judges and was for states rights -- and that California had already decided that it favored abortion so she would respect their wishes. The same for offshore drilling: she supported it but since the people didn't want it, she wouldn't fight for it. Anti-tax? Not really. She wanted more handouts for big business (see her plan for "special economic zones".) The list goes on.....
Carly ran TV ads saying how she would oppose Republicans "when they were wrong" (see issues above). Her ads trying to paint Boxer as arrogant exemplified her own arrogance. Is Boxer worse? Sure! But Carly certainly did not give folks much to vote FOR.
The campaign hacks who ran botched campaigns are reiterating the mantra of California being a Blue State, how the demographics will never allow a conservative (or Republican) to get elected, if only more "moderate" candidates ran (and on and on, ad infinitum). Well of course they will say that - how else can they excuse their miserable performance in terms of candidates and the campaigns they ran. Mike Murphy was the worst -- he tries to blame his own incompetence on everything but himself.
Look at the numbers -- people say that the Dems have a higher registration (true) therefore the GOP should move leftward. They use this to justify forever chasing the non-existent "middle" and completely ignoring that three-fifths to one-half of the electorate didn't even bother to show up and vote. Conservatives won't get excited about electing liberals, even when they put an R next to their name. And why would Democrats vote for a Republican when they have a liberal in their own party to vote for?
But year after year, the idiots "leading" our state party give us the same non-choice choices. Which makes me believe they are not "idiots" at all, but utterly corrupt at the core.
Ping to above post
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2627717/posts?page=32#32
>> This is what happens when ...
The GOP voters in CA and AZ are getting too many excuses for their absurd choices and inaction.
I hope Californians enjoy 6 years of Boxer while they wait for the perfect conservative. The time to pick the perfect conservative was during the GOP primary.
Think what you will of human behavior - but it is what it is. Give people something to vote for and they will.
And nobody is talking “perfection.” That sounds like the same tired line from the incompetent “moderate” leaders.
The polls, right up to election eve, had most every significant statewide race within 4 points, many with the Republican leading. Then on election day we lose every one of these races by ten points. Bullshit!!
Until illegals are marched out of this state back to where they came from, the state will be hopelessly democrat/socialist.
Won't matter to me much longer, cause the 'missus' and I are starting to make our plans to exit.
With prop 32 (greenhouse gas initiative), and newly passed props that allow state legislature to raise taxes with simple majority vs. 2/3 previously required, this state is doomed!! The next four years will show the rest of the nation what one-party rule looks like. $25 billion in the red will quickly grow to $40 billion while the state looks for federal bailouts again and again.
Simple economics says you can't drive away business after business while growing government services year after year. Jerry Brown campaigned to the right of Ronald Reagan. Let's see how 'Moonbeam' governs. All too soon we will be saying,
Adios muchachos...
You have it wrong on the latter. The 2/3 requirement to raise taxes is intact. What was dumped was the 2/3 requirement to pass a budget.
On the other hand, I suppose, with one-party rule, the legislature and/or the Governor will find many 'creative' ways to increase taxes anyway.
How'd that work out for Lt. Governor McClintock? Oh right.
However flawed the candidates, this election I voted straight ticket Republican. As demonstrated up thread, there are enough GOP registered voters to have won the day against Boxer, even Brown. They chose to stay home.
Where have you been? "Fees" have just been grouped with taxes as requiring a 2/3 vote as well. What scares me is that they will go to "fines" instead. Those could become an outrage (they already are on matters related to "the environment").
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a lot of those Registered Republican voters who didn’t vote had already moved out of the State.
That’s the long and the short of it.
Sadly, people don’t really understand this. It’s easier to chalk California off as a “red state” (I’ll never buy into the idea the Democrats are true blue). California is temporarily a red state.
Our candidates don’t provide an alternative message compared to the left, and can’t grasp why the Left rejects them.
A man that is offered a Coke and a cola, will most often choose Coke. If you want them to choose an alternative in large numbers, you provide an orange drink or Seven-up.
I’m sick and tired of being asked to vote for generic colas.
All of the most Conservative people I know voted 3rd party - not Republican. I think this is going to be normal from now on. If the GOP wants half a chance to win California, they are going to have to run conservative enough candidates to try to energize their base. I don’t know if that will do any good as there are 4 registered Dems for every 3 registered GOP. But is it painfully obvious now that running RINO Socialist lites doesn’t work, because the GOP base won’t vote, leaving the Dem voters to elect the Dem candidate.
All summer I heard GOP insiders say how they have to appeal to mainstream moderate Californians and not run candidates too far to the right. I have no faith the incompetent CA GOP will see the proof that is false and try running right wing candidates next time.
IMHO, California is done. It is over. It is doomed. Only a backlash from economic bankruptcy hs a chance to wake the middle class into rejecting socialism, and they may not awaken even then.
California is doomed. I’ll leave as soon as I retire.
Left the state many years ago and am glad I did. Moonbeam was governor then and was a total joke. What deja vu.
The Republicans could have stopped the last massive tax increases, but three or four Republicans joined the Democrats to raise taxes.
Republicans in California and nationwide have to learn that if elected Republicans fail to stop the Democrats when it's in their power, they are largely useless to us. Why would we bother voting for them?
Your usual carefully reasoned (and correct) analysis as to why California keeps electing one political weasel after another. Your last paragraph says it all.
Give a Tom McClintock or Chuck DeVore 1/10th the support that the state GOP gave to any of their "moderate" candidates in this election and we'd have winners. Instead, they will be meddling more in the primaries thanks to their fair-haired-treasonous-liberal-lapdog, Abel Maldonado. I hear they're gonna push Whitman to run against Feinstein. And I don't think we've seen the last of the Democrat that Rove recruited to run for SOS, either. If you expect conservatives to vote for these people just because they have an "R" by their name, you are sadly mistaken -- and you haven't taken to heart the election results for the past decade.
But, I'm sure that we'll have the moderates of the party running to be first in line to trash any conservative candidate. With the open primaries, folks like you will be here during the primary to tell us "conservatives are unelectable" and "we must vote for the democrat"... errrr moderate because "they are the only ones that can win."
BTW, McClintock (45%) did better than Meg Whitman (41%), despite her $150 million dollar boondoggle.
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