Free Republic

From 1965 through 1990, Republican presidential nominees carried California six times in a row, the GOP’s best winning streak ever in the Golden State. California not only was the greatest source of Republican votes in the nation (roughly 10% of GOP votes nationally were delivered here in the 1980s), but its Republican Party produced two presidents within 20 years (Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984). California’s “populist conservatives” also passed initiatives such as the property tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978 that helped spark the national “Tax Revolt.”During the 1980s, California’s population grew...

PROVIDENCE — The decline in Rhode Island’s population for the third straight year, as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau, is being driven by the migration of young, college-educated people looking for better job opportunities in other states, according to experts. Losing these skilled people is an alarming trend, says University of Rhode Island economist Leonard Lardaro. He warns that a lack of educated people of working age makes it more difficult to attract high-tech companies, and their jobs, to Rhode Island. In a year in which the U.S. population topped 300 million for the first time, Rhode Island was...