Run-Up to Super Tuesday: Trouble in Paradise

I was in the Los Angeles area recently to visit family and when I landed at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport, as always, I couldn't help marvel at how exotic the place is, especially in comparison to chilly Maryland where nary a palm tree sways and not a mountain or hill even is to be found ringing the area’s airports. And that ineffable California light! My steps quickened when I emerged from the terminal and into what seems like a movie set (the opening shots of MASH, and many other Hollywood movies were filmed down the road in Malibu Creek State Park) and the chatter of people from Iran, Mexico, the Philippines, the South Pacific. A person can’t be blamed for thinking that this may really be the heart of the American dream.

And a lot of people do believe this. In California—southern California, especially, there isn’t anything that can’t be improved upon, nothing seemingly that can’t be had, nothing that is impossible as you zip down U.S. 101 through Woodland Hills, Calabasas and Malibu, along the highways and byways that take you from mountains to surf in minutes (if traffic permits). Enclaves and redoubts in Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, the botanical gardens of the Huntington Library in Pasadena, where you'd swear problems can't exist. And if this isn’t good enough, there's the movie industry with its perfect stars and starlets, Disneyland, and the excesses of Forest Lawn Cemetery where even death can be improved upon, or the better-than-real recreation of the Italian villa that is the Getty Museum. There can be no doubt that California is, in fact, for dreamers.

Although it is easy to forget amidst the natural and unnatural splendors, California is also for those who simply want to work to buy a home, educate their children, and purchase affordable health insurance. Like many of the states in the southwest—Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas—with which it shares much in common California is growing by leaps and bounds. From 1980 to 2006 the state’s population moved from 23.7 million to 36.5 million (U.S. Census Bureau)--people in search of sun, open space, and the promise the west has always held. The proximity to Mexico, well-paying jobs, and established communities of immigrants also exert a big pull. Because of all this California is smack in the mix of the some of the most important issues of the day—immigration, education, health care, and housing. The subprime mortgage mess has hit nowhere harder than California where whole blocks of cities show signs of the crisis—numerous homes for sale, foreclosures, real estate developers and taxpayers left holding the bag on all the unsold tract homes that cropped up overnight when everyone was flush with easy money and there were mortgages aplenty.

Although Clinton had a big lead in California, the race appears to be tightening, with Obama looking like he can pick up a lot of delegates from the State at the very least. There is no doubt that he is an inspirational candidate but the only question California Democrats should be asking is who is most electable in November, and who will be able to best deal with the problems confronting California and this country. Like all those southwestern states California must deal with burgeoning populations, dwindling resources, and cooling economies. Add to this a broken health care system, the war in Iraq and a foreign policy in complete dissaray and it is clear that much is at stake not only for California but the rest of this country when Californians vote tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if in this state of dreamers, Democratic voters will cast their votes for the candidate they believe not only is best able to deal with these problems but most likely to win the Presidency, or whether they will cast their votes based on something less tangible but perhaps more compelling.