Gasoline prices in California are $1.00 a gallon more than the average cost in the rest of the country according to the Los Angeles Times. Since Obama took office in 2009, gas prices have risen around 100% nationwide and even worse in California. According to the California Energy Commission, on January 21, 2009, the day after Obama took office, a gallon of regular gasoline in this state cost $2.06 on average. On March 12, the same gallon of gas cost $4.38, a 106% increase under Barack Obama.
Astronomical gas prices are not California’s only problem. Unemployment is 10.9% here, higher than the rest of the nation (8.3% nationwide), and at record rates still in important former “growth” counties like San Bernardino, where last week the unemployment rate grew from 11.9 percent in December to 12.3% now, around 40% higher unemployment than the national average.
One would think that California citizens, ranging all the way across the political spectrum from the Tea Party to the Occupy Movement, would be united in anger against the President’s economic policies, and taking it out on him in the Presidential polls. But the reality is very much to the contrary. While automobile dependent unemployed Californians continue to be the chump at the filling station, Obama’s support in California is reaching all time high levels of popularity. In fact, Obama’s strongest large state nationwide appears to be California.
Mid-February polling by Field, Survey USA and Rasmussen Reports gave Obama an average 23.6 % lead over Romney in a one-on-one vote, with Obama at 57.3% to Romney’s 33.7%. These figures are landslide proportions for Obama, and even threaten to exceed the other biggest lopsided vote in a Presidential election in California, as in 1964, which left the Republican party in shambles nationwide: Johnson vs. Goldwater. In 1964, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater only managed to carry five states across the country against incumbent Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater was creamed in California but still managed to get about 41% of the vote here, and at a time when the demographics of the state were far more favorable to Republican candidates. The fact that Romney is polling so much lower than Goldwater’s results at a time when Californians are really hurting suggests that if Romney is the eventual nominee, he may sadly be in for a thumping bigger than even Goldwater’s.
What is it about Obama and California voters? Perhaps a better question is simply “what is it about California voters?” One party dominance in Sacramento has lead to disaster economically in the state, which spends far more than in takes in and which has lost control to public employee unions on issues like pay, benefits, and pensions. It is hard to believe that things could be worse in the Golden State from a policy level; yet Democrats keep winning elections here. Will California voters ever wake up? Maybe not in 2012.
Courtesy Tony Fischer Photography, flickr
Our state is loaded with liberals that couldn’t see the forest for the trees even if one fell on them. They automatically vote democratic regardless of eye opening facts. We now have great weather and scenic wonders but that’s about all!
Okay, that’s “hard-hitting” (ouch!), as promised on capoliticalreview’s “about us” page, but not what I would call “solution-oriented”.
Obama popular while unemployment, gas prices soar in California http://t.co/hBz5zKQc
This state has been stuck on STUPID for so long,it’s not going to change. As long as some one has a D after their name they will get elected here. It will have to completely collapse and we will have to thin the ranks of idiots before Ca will get a clue.
Where do these clowns get their info? Have you noticed that when ever the polls show Ovomits ratings, his approval never, never goes down below 39%. If it does then within a day or two it’s back up to 41%. I do not hold any validity to any poll. Who are they calling? It must be people around D.C. because everytime I go to a market and complain about the inflation of food prices, everyone else has something to say too. I don’t hear any praises for Ovomit, just “Wait till November”. If any one that writes these polls statistics wants them to be believable they should start their column with “Once upon a time”
Wild Bill, you are right on…people doing the statistics are stupid and they do not know left from right. An example is unemployment, they say it is 8.5 cross nation when in fact is at least 18% with the exception of North Dakota and Texas. Another example is the Bush administration, the UCLA said we were no on recession and we had been on it for more than a year. So…logic dictates that those doing the statistics are stupid and are in bed with Obama so they favor him to get re-elected. Here comes the test on “stupidity”: If people believe the statistics then we all better pack and go to another country…Brazil is an excellent candidate as their economy is one of the best worldwide and what is best — they do not meddle in foreign affairs and the Middle East as they have petroleum up the kazoo. The USA and UK have always been parasitic governments invading countries for their goods…it really sucks!
The PROPAGANDA and LIES in the “polls” is enough to make me want to take an Obama……..And if I have any more CRAP shoved down my throat, by the Demo scum I’m going to O vomit!! (Spelling modified to allow for FREE SPEECH!! NO YAHOO CENSORSHIP!!!)
I wouldn’t use the word “Popular” in a positive sense. He along with Romney “Pay” for the attention they get. This is election and not a Popularity Contest. The onesided press is whom you are attributing their popularity too. Tea Partiers vent their frustrations on line and at the ballot box.
Popularity can be positive as well as negative. I cannot speak for the Tea Partiers (I am one) but Obama’s and Romney’s popularity is based on their Monetary Expenditures to Buy Votes. Mine does not happen to be FOR SALE!
Right On, Dolores! Mine neither!!
Californians are in large part the victims of a well organized and executed plan to buy votes with entitlements. Our State devised the best Welfare system in the Country and drew “oh poor me’s” from all over the Country to the land of (free) milk and honey. Those of us who feared the obvious result at the time from those programs correctly predicted that the programs would be the downfall of this State. Either another State will have to promise the “Free Lunch” to draw the flies away from the public trough or it will totally collapse. The progressive entitlements for votes crowd is firmally entrenched in Sacramento as most cities along the Western coast. Common sense and Conservatism are absent and fighting words to the liberals.
Well said , Donald. Not by our own choosing, we are ALWAYS used as the guinea pigs by the rest of the country!! The land of “milk and honey” has turned into the land of “unemployment, poverty and despair”!! It’s DISGUSTING!!
Obama popular while unemployment, gas prices soar in California: http://t.co/QJh0bLTu
Someone once said, “you can’t fix stupid!”. Well if you have the parts to “fix stupid”, you can try. However, when you have parts such as brains, common sense, logic, pride, dignity, responsibility and self-respect missing, then that person who made that quote is quite correct.
In a state where a majority of the people would vote for the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer as representatives, it’s not a shock to me that they would also favor this useless Marxist that was elected to the presidency. I can still hear my mother saying “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”. Unless dramatic changes happen soon, we don’t have much of a future.
The questions the article asked are, “‘What is it about Obama and California voters?’ Perhaps a better question is simply, ‘what is it about California voters?’” The question really should be, “What was wrong with the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1962?”
The reason California is messed up as it is, is because of a court decision, Baker v. Carr (1962) from a case in Tennessee if I recall correctly. As a net result, both houses of the California legislature had to be elected by population. The U.S. House of Representatives is elected by population, and the U.S. Senate is elected two per state regardless of population. Before this decision, the California Assembly was elected by population and the State Senate was elected one per county regardless of population. What we now have is a TWO-HUMPED UNICAMERAL LEGISLATURE giving excess weight to urban political concentrations in the San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego metropolitan areas. This is precisely why 1), Ben Franklin et al designed the U.S. bicameral legislature to avoid this in the U.S. Congress, 2), why our state legislature was originally patterned on the same model, and 3), why this court decision caused the screwed up mess we now have here in California. Our less populous rural counties no longer have the means to keep urban concentrations of political power (including urban welfare recipients and other entitlement suckers) in check. It is also why we have citified legislators who think you can get something for nothing by simply voting for it with no concept of the consequences or associated costs involved. What typifies this sort of harebrained thinking is, as an example, the ban on lead bullet ammo in parts of our state based on politically motivated junk science. The judges who rendered this ill-advised decision had absolutely no idea how a Constitutional republic works and why bicameral legislatures work the way they do.
I have given this some serious thought. One thing we in California can do is have the non-citified counties petition the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Baker v. Carr, citing the United States Constitution, Article I, our legislative model, as the reason, citing the means by which agricultural and other non-urban counties are protected from the excesses of urban concentrations of political power in the same manner as the less populous states are protected in the Congress from the more populous states. The petition should also ask for return to the way it was BEFORE this ill-advised decision forced this change as a precedent, as it is unlikely that urban concentrations of political power would properly relinquish its power to those whose power was usurped by this decision in the first place. To put it simply, the Assembly represents people at large, and the State Senate represents COUNTIES in the same manner as the U.S. House of Representatives represents people at large and the U.S. Senate represents STATES. This is how a Constitutional republic works, and why our legislature was originally patterned on this model. It would also mean that even if the Assembly were gerrymandered to the gills as it is now, the State Senate would serve as a check and balance against it.
If we do this now, we might see the problem corrected in the November election with the reelection of the State Senate without having to hold special elections at additional cost to the taxpayers. For a change, this would be taxpayer money well spent.
Great analysis.
Ahhh, the relentless, incremental democratization of our federal and state republics by progressives who, with the likes of Baker v. Carr, the 17th Amendment, and other assaults on our constitutional systems of government, have done immeasurable damage to the Founders’ vision for our people.
It is worse than that. You have to go clear back to 1913 and the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, which authorizes the income tax and the OTHERWISE unconstitutional methods required to collect and enforce it. It has caused money hemorrhage at every level of production. Let us look at the cost of a simple tool such as a cold chisel. The ore is mined out of the ground. When it is sold to the smelter, the miner has to pay income tax on it. The smelter smelts it and produces the bar stock. He sells it to a tool manufacturer and pays income tax on that. The tool manufacturer forges and tempers the bar stock into a cold chisel. He sells it to the distributor and pays income tax on that. The distributor sells it to the local hardware store, and pays income tax on that. The hardware store sells it to the customer and pays income tax on that. In addition to the sales tax, the customer is paying all sorts of hidden taxes on a simple cold chisel.
Because of the hidden taxes in the retail price, the public has no idea of the true cost of government. Further, it has caused government at the state and federal level to grow exponentially first to fit the available money, and now, beyond the available money with massive deficit spending. Government has now grown beyond the bounds set by our Founding Fathers and the Framers of our U.S. Constitution, and states loaded with urban concentrations of political power such as California have followed suit.
I might add also that the presumed power of government to intrude into your financial affairs under the Sixteenth Amendment is now the pretext for Obozocare’s power to have unfettered access to your personal and financial affairs.
The federal government and state governments have now become their own special interests. In addition to massive increases in numbers of bureaucrats, public employee unions have “negotiated (sic)” higher pay and better retirements than similar jobs in the private sector. They “negotiate (sic)” with public officials. They also pay into these same elected officials’ campaign funds. Let us use the “duck” analogy. If it looks like a bribe, sounds like a bribe, and works like a bribe, let’s call it a bribe! Note that the one party that is missing in these “negotiations (sic)” is the TAXPAYER!
The public now wonders why we are in such a royal mess.
Want to stop the demon-crats from stealing anymore elections?
Simply pass voter ID laws in all states, and they are DONE with ruining our country any further.
I’ve been saying, campaign after campaign, SHOW ME THE CANDIDATE/S that will push this as one of their platforms, that/those candidates I WILL SUPPORT…and I would expect most financially bleeding Californians will do the same thing unless they’re missing those parts I mentioned previously. This includes those candidate who will push to have ALL government-produced voting documentation published in ENGLISH ONLY.
Some will probably think this is a racist statement…so be it, but it is not. I have mentioned no language to eliminate; just to keep all information in English.
You hit the nail on the head NorCal. I’ve been an advocate for English only in the voting booth. Part of becoming a citizen (used to be) learning English well enough to understand well enough to read and understand how to vote. But apparently that’s not a requirement any more and neither is checking IDs when you vote.
EXCELLENT SUGGESTION!! : )
If they would ask the working Californians the same questions not just the rich elite, which most of the elite have left Ca. for tax purposes, and the people who can hardly speak English. Which by the way is a must to become an American citizen. You will get a different result to your questions. California does not stand a chance with these anti American law politicians we have here. You see the illegals are hard workers and work, but their employers use them so they can pay less in wages in cash no taxes taken out no benefits such as basic health insurance. That is okay because the democrats are going to save these poor people that employers and others take advantage of. I have heard the same BS lie for decades. If the democrats really wanted to help these people they would make sure they all could write, speak and understand English, so they would know the benefits that are owed to them. I have seen this time and again, that when they can communicate and understand English the employers lose their power over them. Which is precisely what the democrats want just to use them as a poor dumb voting block
I’m constantly writing my Senators and Congressman and if I get a answer at all, it is “I guess we will have to agree to dis-agree”. I know that the government leaders in my area of California definately don’t represent me. I still vote my mind..
Anybody here take a college class called “How To Lie With Statistics”? If you did you know that Polls can be structured to show any result the pollster want to present. Never believe in polls. Remember Actions speak louder than words.
We need a GOOD SOLID EARTHQUAKE to send the IDIOT LIBERALS packing back to wherever they came from!! There is a reason we in Southern California call San Fran “NOCAL”!!
HEY! WAITAMINNIT!!!! We true NORCAL residents do NOT claim the cesspool-by-the-bay as part of NORCAL! There are Red Zones up here!
Presented as a public service announcement!
Dear NorCal Libertarian,
We are counting on you to talk some common sense into them and get the LOONIES in line!! : ) Together we can take back our beautiful state!!
Amen!
yeah but we get to piss in your drinking water!
California (mainly San Francisco) THE LAND OF THE FRUITS & NUTS!
Trouble is, as multi-cultural, social and economic justice California goes, so goes the nation. It’s just a matter of degree for a while, but eventually, it’s just a matter of time.
Oh Oh,
Yeah, that’s what worries me……. : ( The rest of the country “got it” and brought in new blood at the last election and California “recycled” the same old trash = Jerry Brown!! Most of the liberally brainwashed college age voters were in diapers the last time he tried to destroy this state!! I doubt they will they ever get it……. : (
barry is popular in the fruitcake state of caliporkya. Stupid is as stupid does. barry’s campaign slogan for caliporkya? “Vote yes for stupid” It worked last time for moonbeam.
Andy94538 – Re: Electing State Senators.
The problem is that originally U.S. Senators were appointed by the States (in whatever arrangement that each state devised between the Governor and Legislature), and were representatives of their State’s Government. If, in writing the CA Constitution, State Senators were appointed by County Supervisors, it would have been much more difficult for SCOTUS to change the system. But, the way it is now, having a bi-cameral legislature is a pure waste of money – we might as well adopt the Nebraska Plan; though, adding-in the Texas proviso that the legislature can only be in session 140-days of each 2-year legislative period would be good too (or as some revisionists in TX demand: 2-days in each 140-year legislative period).
Once again California voters come across as totally brain dead. Where the heck has the average voter been over the past 20 years while the Democrats have been robbing us blind? Curious about life in the average crummy banana republic? No you don’t need to buy an airline ticket and fly to Venezuela as a crummy third world banana republic is coming into being right before your eyes here in California!
Most CAlifrnians havent figured out that socialism is wonderfull until you run out of other peoples money. It is happening right beore our eyes. What do these people who are on the free money train think is going to happen when the money runs out? Stockton is going bankrupt, LA is a joke, as is SF and San Jose is trying but probably wont succeed. When the money is gone the fat lady will sing,” Its all over turn out the lights” and when the lights go out, the people that arnet getting their free stuff any longer will go and take it by force and the liberals will not like that. When the winshied of the Prious or Volt or Hybrid SUV gets busted out buy “one of them”. Its coming people. Better either get ready or move. You wont be able to move far enough away though as the cancer of socialism/liberalism is malignante. Its to late.
I worked in the schools for 12 years before quitting in disgust. Thanks to “progressive” policies forced into the classrooms, we graduate students who are too ignorant to think for themselves, with all too many who are too inept to get anything above marginal jobs that foster government dependency. … and then there’s the example of some of the teachers themselves who shamelessly equated him to the Almighty in 2008 (he was going to make their jobs easier … and perhaps increase their union pensions, or so those teachers thought). Don’t you think those same students took that message home to many struggling (and voting) parents!!!! Very sad and even hard-nosed to say, but all too very true!
All excellent comments!! No brain dead people here.
It is Sunday morning. I have decided to pray long and hard today for the highest gas prices ever! Bring on $8 and $9, $10 per gallon prices at the pumps all over the country. This is about the only way we will get the brain dead to possibly feel some pain and look around to see what the H..ll is going on! Just like infants to pain, they will respond immediately. We should be planning on how to raise the price of gas and keep it high to the election in November, using any tactic at all, in order to begin to reach back to our Constitutional principals inspite of all the progressives and their minyon followers. When you think about it, all this political planning to defeat should not be so hard since the Libs are truly stupid. If we just change our tactics and reach them where they live – their primal instincts – we can win our country back. The following day we will start a mass educational campaign to educate every Citizen to know without a doubt where they live, exactly why they are so fortunate, and how to keep it that way. Primal Instinct should be the GOP campaign strategy. Let’s Roll!
California has been left-wing socialist for too many years. Out here, we tend to keep making the same mistakes all over again, hoping for different results. We elected Jerry Brown,giving him the chance to finish the job of bankrupting the state, that he started in his last term. In all fairness, California, area wise, is conservative, but we are governed by the large population of left-wing snakes nesting in the SF and LA areas, long known to be America haters. It’s going to continue to be this way, as long as the good people stay home on election day. Most election days, you can go to the polls at 2PM, and only about 30 people have shown up to vote.
This reply is to Jerry…You hit the nail right on the head. Voter apathy or just plain laziness has resulted in the destruction of this State. All those voters that go to the poll just to say they voted and vote for “incumbents” because they are to lazy to use their own brains have also helped to make California a basket case.
Who did they talk too??? Everyone I talk to tells me “What a mistake he is for a president”! He has turned us into a Socialist state, uses his office like a dictatorship,issuing Executive Orders, takes extravagant vacations at our expense, and out right lies! I’m only repeating what people tell me. Personally, I see everything costs at least 33% more, we are trillions of dollars in debt, and Social Security suddenly became an entitlement program. If the same money paid into the Social Security fund had been invested, instead of used as a “cash cow”, we who are over 65 would each be getting checks for more than $2000.00 per month! I do not know where people get these so called polls. Certainly not from the average person on the street, out of work, and still having to resort to Food Stamps.
You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can`t fool all of the people all of the time except in California where you can fool most of the people most of the time because most of the people in California are successes of the dumb ed down education system.
$4 gas is the result of the worldwide oil cartel of OPEC and its allies acting
to squeeze off oil supplies.
Here are two effective short-term remedies:
1. Require Iraq to start pumping more immediately. It is still producing at
the Hussein level of 2003. Iraq’s reserves are near the top in the world.
2. Require Iraq to stop using its membership in OPEC to skyrocket oil prices.
As the ongoing occupying power in Iraq, the US has the power to direct ALL
activities of the Iraq government, including its participation in OPEC.
President Obama should issue the orders, and Congress should hold hearings. The
price of gas was $1/gallon in March 2003 when the occupation started. It should
go back there for the benefit of the American public.
Moreover, the biggest buyer of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel is the Federal
government, via the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration,
and the Postal Service. $4 gasoline results in tens of billions of dollars of
deficit compared to the $1 per gallon in March 2003. Gas price reductions will
shrink the budget deficit vastly.
Well, La use to be middle of the Road but RR and Republicans never thought that changing demographics in La would mean the Dems win all the time. And Actually Romey will lose the state but probably will perfrom better in Orange, and San Diego than Mccain did. The Republicans don’t know how to approach California which is less liberal than New York but its the socal issues that hurt the GOP westeward among whites. Republicans barely win the white vote maybe 1 or 2 percent in the case of Meg Whitman and the minority vote goes Democratic. Also, the Repubs instead of Texas as a model could talk about the good old days when Calif had low poverty and strong Republican support in Orange, San Diego which were counties at the time that had a middle class existence and low poverty rates. Military spending in the old days help Calif, the downturn also turn them against Republicans. In fact, the aerospace industry in the old days was the reason why La was middle of the road and Orange and San Diego were more righrwinge. Republicans should talk about keeping defense spending up and making Calif more competive to bring back some aerospace.