SAN DIEGO — For four decades, California’s second-largest city has had a habit of electing bland, mostly Republican centrists. Some have been effective. Pete Wilson went on to become a senator and governor. Some have been disasters. Dick Murphy was…
The idea that Democrats care more about the poor and the needy is an enduring American political stereotype — and one of the party’s most potent vote-getting tools. It’s highly questionable whether Democrats’ emphasis on government paternalism and a generous…
Just over five years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into power in California, vowing to crush the “spending addicts” responsible for the state’s crushing budget deficit and to thwart Sacramento Democrats who saw taxpayers as ATMs. “The people of California have…
Under normal circumstances, November 2008 might have been remembered as a key moment in the American climate-change policy debate. Two independent evaluations were made public that analyzed California’s groundbreaking, path-setting 2006 law dictating a sharp state increase in the use…
ANAHEIM — Arnold Schwarzenegger has made some trippy movies, but they can’t compare with the bizarre drama he’s now starring in. Since being elected governor in the October 2003 recall of incompetent and irresponsible Gray Davis, Schwarzenegger has pursued a…
PHILADELPHIA — There’s nothing intrinsically surprising about a veteran war correspondent, in mid-fulmination about Iraq, to say that the United States is deservedly hated by the rest of the world. It’s what one would expect from Robert Fisk or dozens…
ANAHEIM — For those appalled by the emergence of the California Legislature, circa the year 2000, as the most reliably left-wing legislative body east of Pyongyang, the Schwarzenegger era continues to be a genuine feel-good story. A year after taking…