With the east coast states reporting first and all the Biden hype, the fact of the largest state in the union voting decisively for Bernie Sanders has been glossed over in the news. So let’s take a moment to celebrate Bernie Sanders winning California and analyze what it means. California, as the richest, most populist state, tends to be a harbinger of what is coming in the nation.
The chart above shows the status of the race
from the California Secretary of State website today (called for Bernie Sanders
last Tuesday by AP). If you add together
the percentages of all the centrist candidates and all the progressive
candidates, it’s basically a wash, but Bernie won the state by a lot more than
Joe Biden won Texas (Biden 34.5% to Sanders 30%).
While popular imagination holds California as a
progressive state that reflects the politics of San Francisco, it hasn’t always
been blue let alone progressive. Until
relatively recently, California was up for grabs in presidential elections and
statewide elections. For example, from
2003 to 2011, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a centrist Republican, was governor of the
state (who would made it clear he would have run for president if not a
naturalized citizen). Similarly, Diane
Feinstein, a centrist Democrat who has often infuriated progressives, has been
California’s untouchable U.S. Senator since 1992. It was considered a longshot when Barbara
Boxer, a San Francisco progressive, was elected to the U.S> Senate too.
I am a third generation Californian but I lived
outside the state for almost 20 years.
When I moved back in 1997 the conventional wisdom was that there were 4
pillars of California statewide politics.
To get elected, a candidate had to be:
o
Pro choice
o
Pro death penalty
o
Pro environmental protection
o
Anti taxes
Which sounds a lot more like Joe Biden than it does Bernie
Sanders. Our last governor, Jerry Brown
(D), started his final two terms standing on all four of these pillars, and
then flipped and ended up leading a successful statewide campaign to raise
income taxes on the wealthy.
Our current governor Gavin Newsom (D)
campaigned for office more like Bernie Sanders than he did Joe Biden. Shortly after inauguration, he suspended the
death penalty in the state for as long as he is in office. There is some question, however, how serious
he was about enacting single payer healthcare/medicare for all at the state
level. He campaigned on it but then
installed health insurance industry business as usual types as top (health
policy) staff.
They say that as California goes, so goes the
nation. As California’s housing prices
continue to rise, people have fled to neighboring states in droves. Evidence suggests that Nevada, Arizona and
Texas have all moved to the left partly as a result of exported California
values.
As the mainstream of the national Democratic
establishment has seized control of the primary with its decisive elevation of
Joe Biden as the frontrunner, California’s election of Bernie Sanders shows the
party may be out of step with the future of the Democratic electorate.
No comments:
Post a Comment