California, here we go.....

I don't believe in "too big to fail". The smart person who said "If it is too big to fail it is too big to exist" was right on target. Of course, he was talking about banks, not a state. Now we are hearing that California is "too big to fail." Nonsense. California may well "fail." Maybe it should.

I live here. I am a California partisan so to speak. Maybe it is just habit, or a natural reaction to being a native. Maybe it's sloth. Other than New York City I can't yet imagine where else I'd be as at home as I am in LA. Don't misread me. I have great affection for much of the rest of the country and Americans in general. I am one.

Let me be clear though. California is not too big to fail. It is failing. Right now. There are many reasons. Neither party has been responsible in the last 30 years. For all the yelping about how "blue" California is - in the years 27 since 1982 a Democrat has been governor for exactly 5 years.

Much as it pains me to say it: If California is a "failure" it ought to be allowed to fail. Because of Prop 13, it is nearly impossible to raise taxes. Yet, no one is willing to see services cut either. The wheels where bound to come off. A day of reckoning is here. So be it.

It will be interesting to see how Obama responds. One could presume that he can't allow California to "fail" and will ride in at the last minute with some of that money he's been printing for Goldman Sachs and company. If California sinks into misery by 2012 it will go flashing GOP red...regardless of who is on the ballot. No Cali. No second term.

The Democratic ascendancy in California is very recent and confined to the coast. As I have said before the "nocal/socal" divide is largely a concoction of Marin county granola types who look down on LA....often while enjoying a TV show or movie produced in socal....The real divide here is between West and East. Except for San Diego and southern Orange county (northern Orange county as been blue for a while now) the coast is blue. The closer one gets to Nevada and Arizona the more GOP it becomes. California votes for Republicans routinely. Bill Clinton changed the presidential voting trend blue. Before that one has to go back to 1964 and before that 1948 to find Dems taking the state. Los Angeles elected a GOP mayor for two terms in the 90s. No small feat for this very blue town. Since 1942 a Democrat have been governor for all of 21 years. Since 1942 a Democrat not named Brown has been governor once. He was recalled.

Obama should not assume California is in the bag in 2012.

Then again he says he won't bailout California. (Like what he says matters! Ha!) The state probably only needs 15 billion more to fill the gap...and what is 15 billion now anyway? Chump change.

We shall see.

Finally, let me say I think Arnold is okay. I did not support the recall of Gray Davis. What the fervent Arnold recall army ought to remember though - is that he has proven to be no better and is probably a bit worse than Davis.