Posted on 08/14/2012 1:28:02 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
California is the Golden State, home to surfing, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but it appears likely to become something else entirely for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan: a political punching bag.
Romney took a shot at California last week when he told an Iowa crowd that he likened the nation's most populous state - and the world's eighth largest economy - to Greece, the international symbol of fiscal irresponsibility.
"Entrepreneurs and business people around the world and here at home think that at some point America is going to become like Greece or like Spain or Italy, or like California - just kidding about that one, in some ways," Romney told a laughing crowd.
Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, went one better - lauding Romney's choice of Ryan on her Facebook page with an eye-popping 1,200-word roundhouse punch at California.
"When I think about the direction our country is rapidly drifting in, I can't help but look at California as a cautionary tale," Palin wrote to her Facebook followers. "The Golden State once boasted the entrepreneurial innovation of Silicon Valley - the American creative engine."
Palin then praised Romney's choice of Ryan and said that, by comparison, "Obama's vision for America will make the rest of the country look like California, minus the beautiful scenery and warm weather."
She ticked off a litany of nightmares in the Democrat-controlled state: "$100 billion taxpayer-funded bullet trains," "out-of-control environmentalists," a government that is "hostile" to small-business job creators, "permanent high unemployment" and an "abysmal real estate market."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Bump!
I think you’re right. The visuals and the statistics will be devastating. Just bringing this up changes the dialogue. I think the GOP has a real chance to crack the Dem hold on blacks and minorities.
I live in California and I am grateful that Sarah is telling the hard truth to the people here. Shame on the people who elected the crooks and Dems here.
Hit them where it hurts Sarah!! Keep it coming until they cry like little girls with an owie!
Thankfully the GOP, for once, will not waste money trying to win California.
Yep. They should go out there and milk it for campaign fundraising, but don't spend any there. Like NY, it's a lost cause. The only way Obama would lose CA is if he announced he's had an epiphany and become a Tea Partier.
Nope. When California looks in the mirror, she sees Lolo Jones. To the rest of us, she's Barbra Streisand... without makeup.
California has somewhere around $650 Billion of debt.
Greece has somewhere around $550 Billion of total debt.
It appears Greece is doing an incrementally better job of managing its finances.
Until you consider the respective size of the overall economies. California's debt is about 30% of their GDP. Greece's is almost 200% of GDP.
Ahhhhh... well that explains some of it!
LLS
They say this like it’s not a honest assessment of how broken California has become.
Until you consider total debt. The $550 Billion for Greece is the total National Debt of Greece. To compare this number “apples to apples” with California's debt, you have to come up with a “national” number for California. Allocating US National Debt by population to California would add about $1.5 Trillion to California's number of $550 Billion for a total of $2,050 Billion. This is over 100% of California's SDP (State Domestic Product). This also does not include California's share of the total US national unfunded liabilities.
So I guess you could say California's debt problem is not as bad a Greece when comparing total national debt to GDP/SDP type metrics. However, you could also say California's total debt load is 3X to 4X that of Greece in terms of real dollars. California is also currently running the largest budget deficit of all the states in the US, projected to be somewhere between $20 Billion and $30 Billion in 2012.
..McCain lost by 24 points—this is just a fundraiser. CA will never go GOP again...
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