Free Republic

When state Sen. Bob Margett walks among the manufacturers and dairy farmers of his conservative district, he says, "it's all attaboys" for his part in the seven-week budget stalemate that has paralyzed much of state government. " 'Bob, . . . thank God for the Senate,' " the Arcadia lawmaker recalled hearing time and again. "I'm getting all these attaboys to hang in there, and that's my constituency. I don't have a single vote in San Francisco." .... Nor is he beholden to voters in other largely Democratic urban areas. Margett and 13 GOP colleagues in the Senate represent a...

They're of particular interest after the presidential election, when the Republican red tide continued to spread across the American heartland and into California's interior. For many voters, the Democratic brand name has become increasingly synonymous with the label "liberal." If not for the fear of liberalism, why would nearly 61 million Americans — including 5.5 million Californians, 44% of the state's electorate — vote to reelect a president who had so mismanaged both a war and the national treasury?