San Diego has historically been a reliably Republican county, although Democrats have surpassed Republicans in voter registration, currently holding a four-point advantage. Around this time in 2000, Republicans had a six-point advantage.

Time will tell if this endorsement is just a strange blip in an even stranger election or if the paper’s Editorial Board is just changing with the region it serves. The endorsement, however, was a lesser-of-two-evils argument.

Instead of heaping praise upon the preferred candidate, as most endorsements do, the U-T imagined a grim future under a President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

“We understand the lack of enthusiasm for her candidacy, the anger over her private email server, family foundation and income from Wall Street speeches, and the questions about how America fared in foreign affairs when she was secretary of state,” the U-T wrote. “But despite Trump’s insistence otherwise, she has the better temperament to be president — and the experience, background and relationships with world leaders that we need in a president.”

Concerns over international relations, temperament, the economy and trade were the highlights in the argument against Trump. The U-T also said Trump would take into office an “open-enemies list” (basically Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a bunch of news organizations), but missed Clinton’s history of harboring grudges.

“Sixteen months into his campaign, Donald Trump remains Donald Trump,” the U-T wrote. “Despite constant counsel from GOP advisors and insiders to adopt a decorous public persona, Trump continues to lash out at critics, to insist complex problems can be solved with little effort and to depict an America that’s been ‘ripped off by every single country in the world,’ as he said in this week’s debate.”

The U-T predicted that a Trump administration could be friendlier with Russia than traditional U.S. allies, compared him to former Venuezuela President Hugo Chávez and wrote he was nothing like Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. 

“Vengeful, dishonest and impulsive, Trump is no Romney,” the U-T wrote. “This is why Hillary Clinton is the safest candidate for voters to choose in a complex world.”

Later, the focus began to shift toward rate shock. Even liberal bloggers have taken to the internet to complain about their premiums doubling. And most recently, the glare has turned toward President Obama and his prevarication that, “If you like your insurance, you can keep it.” The rollout thus far has been nothing short of an unmitigated political and policy disaster for Obama. (If the presidential election were held today, Gov. Mitt Romney would win, according to a recent poll.)

And, as with any crisis, there’s more. Today let’s take a look at how the Affordable Care Act is affecting dental care in the United States and California. First, consider this reader e-mail:

ACA is affecting more than health care. United Healthccare Dental has sent out rate notices they say are caused by ACA. A family that now pays $67.00/month in Santa Barbara County will now pay $191.35 in 2014. This is in sharp contrast to the new rate of $34.61 in Nancy Pelosi’s district, San Francisco. The new rate of $191.35 affects only San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Barbara and Tulare Counties. 

So, why the hike in dental rates (for some Californians)?  Under the Affordable Care Act, dental coverage is deemed “essential” — for children.  If someone has a child under 18, they must have dental care. It can come in two forms, according to News Leader.

1. Health plans that include dental coverage. In the Marketplace, dental coverage will be included in some health plans. You’ll be able to see which plans include dental coverage when you compare them. You’ll also see what the dental benefits are. If a health plan includes dental coverage, you will pay one premium for everything. The premium shown for the plan includes both health and dental coverage.

2. Separate, stand-alone dental plans. In some cases separate, stand-alone plans will be offered. You may want to choose this option if the health coverage you plan to enroll in doesn’t include dental coverage, or if you want different dental coverage. If you choose a separate dental plan, you’ll pay a separate, additional premium for the dental plan.

Rate hike

The dental rate hike has occurred for the same reason that so many health care plans have seen their premiums increase. More people — and some of them higher risk — are now entering insurance pools. And on top of that, each plan has more features, regardless of whether or not a policyholder wants or needs those additional pieces of coverage.

But the dental health care component isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be, according to a report from Kaiser Health News:

Under the ACA, states were supposed to select existing insurance policies in their states to serve as benchmarks for the plans they include on their exchanges. Because most medical plans do not include dental coverage, some of those benchmark plans don’t either.

But because the ACA requires pediatric dental care, states either will graft dental coverage into the medical plans on the exchanges or offer customers the opportunity to buy separate stand-alone dental policies.

There’s a hitch, advocates say: States that opt to offer stand-alone dental policies do not have to require parents to purchase them. While some states, such as Washington and Nevada, are making it a requirement, others are not, according to Colin Reusch, a senior policy analyst with the Children’s Dental Health Project.  So in effect, although pediatric dental benefits are “essential,” they will not be mandatory in all states.

Whether or not the states that opt out of the mandatory requirement will experience much lower rates remains to be seen.

By John Seiler

Republicans now are searching for a new path for their party. They’re realizing they can’t win with their current policies. They’re trying to be a new, “hip,” “with it,” pro-middle class party. So here’s where they’re doing, as reported by Laurence Vance:

“This past Friday, an “Internet Sales Tax” amendment (no. 656) to S.Con.Res. 8, sponsored by Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi, passed the Senate with the support of twenty-six Republicans, many of them known as conservatives, with most of them talking about how conservative they are when facing a Democrat in an election.

“Here are the senators: Alexander (R-TN), Blunt (R-MO), Boozman (R-AR), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Corker (R-TN), Crapo (R-ID), Enzi (R-WY), Fischer (R-NE), Graham (R-SC), Hoeven (R-ND), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Johnson (R-WI), Kirk (R-IL), McCain (R-AZ), Moran (R-KS), Portman (R-OH), Risch (R-ID), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Wicker (R-MS).”

So, just like the Democrats, the Republican Party favors taxing the Internet, which the middle-class — including all those immigrants the GOP now is trying to attract — uses for commerce, communication and fun.

Note the presence there of Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee. The party’s problems didn’t begin with Mitt Romney, the 2012 nominee — and himself a notorious tax raiser with his RomneyCare socialized medicine scheme in Massachusetts when he was governor there.

It’s becoming harder to find a reason why the Republican Party should continue operating.

CalWatchdog.com Editors

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — It’s no secret that Republicans in the Golden State have been dispirited by the last two election cycles where the GOP has been relegated to virtually no power in statewide politics.  Nationally 2012 was also a lackluster election year for Republicans, yet many in the party are beginning to bounce back showing signs of optimism. The source of this energy is not due necessarily to the ongoing Conservative Political Action Conference but instead due in part to Senator Rand Paul’s recent filibuster in the United State Senate.

Watching various speeches at CPAC, I’ve found it interesting that the rhetoric from Republican elected officials and conservative leaders hasn’t changed much from last year’s election to today. And in fact, in some cases it may have even hardened. Even former presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a speech Friday at CPAC that sounded like it was something from the campaign trail rather than a forward looking message. (There have been a few exceptions, of course, like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s call for a new focus for his party, similar to other speeches he’s made recently and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s chastising of the party’s establishment.)

Yet the high point for Republicans—in this moment at least— seems to be Senator Rand Paul. His filibuster demanding answers from the Obama Administration on the use of drones on United States soil illustrated the ability of one senator to lead on an issue and capture  the national dialogue, even as a member of the minority party in the United State Senate.

Staffers on Capitol Hill noted that Paul’s filibuster helped change the level of morale among Republicans in Washington, and it did so at a key moment; just before the leading national gathering of conservatives. At CPAC Sen. Paul was remarkably well received but particularly so by large numbers of young conservatives—many young conservatives who likely attended the event, at least in part, because of Paul.

Rand Paul’s recent ascent in popularity further stokes rumors of a presidential run for the Kentucky senator in 2016. Regardless of the potentiality of a bid for the White House, the GOP has a libertarian-minded Republican helping shape public discourse on issues with crossover appeal particularly hitting a cord with young people and those interested in civil liberties. That’s progress.

Even though a wholesale change in messaging by Republicans has not been evident at CPAC, there are new, powerful voices beginning to shape a movement in need some modernization. And thus an understandable bump in enthusiasm by the GOP.

By Katy Grimes

As long as I have followed politics closely — since Junior High school in the 1970’s — I’ve said political consultants will be the death of the Republican Party.

And now, finally, a political consultant finally agrees with me. “The way it works is this–ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee,  they decide who they think should run,” Pat Cadell said at the CPAC conference. “You hire these people on the accredited list [they say to candidates] otherwise we won’t give you money. You hire my friend or else.”

“Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Thursday with a blistering attack on ‘racketeering’ Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like ‘marks,'” Breitbart.com reports.

“When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the ‘fantastic’ get-out-the-vote program…some of this borders on RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] violations,” Caddell told the crowd. “It’s all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They’re in the business of lining their pockets.”

What else could possibly explain John McCain or Mitt Romney, or in California, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina? These were all decisions made by the political establishment, despite other viable candidates.

“As a Democrat, Caddell said he could tell the truth about the failings of the Republicans 2012 campaign efforts since ‘I have no interest in the Republican Party,'” Breitbart.com reported. “He compared Republicans unfavorably to Democrats.’In my party we play to win. We play for life and death. You people play for a different kind of agenda…Your party has no problem playing the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters.'”

In other words, Republicans play for big money and self-enrichment, while Democrats play to win. Look at America right now, and look at California… could it be any more clear?

On the Romney campaign, Cadell said, “There was a failure of strategy, a failure of tactics, a massive failure of messaging. Most of all there was a total failure of imagination.”

“Caddell singled out Stuart Stevens, a key figure in Romney’s campaign, in a particularly withering critique. “Stevens had as much business running a campaign as I do sprouting wings and flying out of this room,” he said.

Meg Whitman spent $160 million on her failed campaign for California governor.

She paid millions each to seven consultant vendors:

* the Majority Strategies direct mail concern ($5.4 million)
* Arena Communications, GOP political mail experts ($5 million)
* Campaign advisor Scott Howell, whose “strategic media firm” touts ties to Karl Rove ($4.5 million)
* Tokoni Inc., a social networking concern that worked for Whitman in the primary ($3.8 million)
* strategist Mike Murphy’s Bonaparte Films LLC ($1.1 million)
* SJZ LLC, a Massachusetts fundraising firm founded by Spencer Zwick, an adviser to former Gov. Mitt Romney ($1.1 million)
* Intuitive Technology Solutions, which stages events ($1 Million)

And Whitman brought in the usual big-bucks GOP consultants and advisers, California Watch reported. “Tack on $11.6 million for political consultants, $10.5 million for mail and an astonishing $106.9 million for broadcast advertising, and you get an idea of how Meg Whitman spent more than $160 million,” California Watch reported.

* campaign manager Jillian Hasner ($829,000)

* senior adviser Jeff Randle ($512,000)

* deputy campaign managers W. Todd Cranney ($350,205)  and Tucker Bounds ($273,000)

* press secretary Sarah Pompei ($202,000).

“Even though Whitman’s campaign was largely self-financed, she also spent heavily on fundraising. Payees included GOP fundraising specialist Jill Huerter ($696,000), the online fundraising concern BlueSwarm LLC ($640,000) and On Target Fundraising of Oregon ($528,000).”

Whitman’s campaign is just one example of how much money flows through campaigns, and how much consultants and advisors make, win or lose.

While the California Watch report included some of Brown’s campaign spending, the glaring flaw was the omission of the vast union spending done on Brown’s behalf. Republican candidates face daunting union pushback, but that is no justification for the gross self-profiting.

“You won the House [in 2012] because of the reapportionment that came after the 2010 [Tea Party] victories,” Cadell said. “Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), elected in 2010, and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), elected in 2012, had to fight this establishment at every step in the process and ‘claw their way’ to electoral success.”

By John Seiler

Some good news: As Judy Woodruff reports, 73 percent of Americans distrust the U.S. government., that relentless tyrant that controls, robs and ruins our lives.

This is an opportunity for Republicans. They have been nominating unrepentant big-government candidates like Romney, McCain, Schwarzenegger and Whitman, who are indistinguishable from the Democratic opponents, Obama and Jerry Brown.

Republicans should start nominating small-government types like Ron Paul and Tom McClintock.

Give us a choice, at least.

By John Seiler

I got some pretty good response to my article, “Brown official: You’re our slave.” I was attacking the statement by Gil Duran, Gov. Jerry Brown’s press secretary, “We have to look beyond our personal interests to where we are going as a society.”

I wrote, “Translation: As a taxpayer, you’re the slave of government.”

I just found an article with a similar theme to mine by David Mamet, the writer and director. He’s been moving to the right for some years. In the liberal Village Voice in 2008, he wrote, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.'”

His latest, for Newsweek no less, “Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm,” worth reading in full. He doesn’t pull any punches and at the top brings up Socialist No. 1:

“Karl Marx summed up Communism as ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.

“For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called ‘The State,’ and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read ‘The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.’ ‘Needs and abilities’ are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to ‘the State shall take, the State shall give.’”

Right. That’s the operative mode of Duran-Brown. It’s also that of President Obama in his statement, “You didn’t build that.” And Obama’s State of the Union Address on Jan. 21 positively dripped with contempt for individual freedom and with the glorification of the collective.

Bureaucrats

More Mamet:

“All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.

“Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.

“As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.

“President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent [Mitt Romney], alleging that each has more money than he ‘needs.’

“But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining ‘needs’? And note that the president did not say ‘I have more money than I need,’ but ‘You and I have more than we need.’ Who elected him to speak for another citizen?

“It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. ‘One-size-fits-all,’ and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is ‘slavery.’”

Slavery

Mamet gets it. About 40 percent of my money is seized by the government. And faceless government bureaucrats minutely control at least another 25 percent of my life through mindless regulations. So, about two-thirds of my life is not mine, but the government’s. I’m their slave.

Sure, I get to “vote” for which of two whip-yielding masters takes my money. But I never get to vote to set myself free. As to elections, see “Wag the Dog,” screenplay by Mamet.

As Walter Williams, whose ancestors were chattel slaves here in America before 1865, pointed out:

“A good working description is: slavery is a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor.

“The average American worker toils from January 1st to the end of April, and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor for that period. Federal, state and local governments, through the tax code, take what he produces. A small portion of the fruits of his labor is used to provide for the constitutional functions of government. Most of what’s taken, up to two-thirds, is given to some other American in the forms of farm and business subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, welfare and hundreds of other government handout programs. As in slavery, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person.”

If we followed the Constitution, government would be about 2 percent of what it is today, and wouldn’t regulate us at all. But we don’t.

A slave revolt is brewing.

By John Seiler

When I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960s, the Democratic Party mostly dominated the state. Kennedy, Johnson and Humphrey won the presidential contests. Democrats controlled the Legislature. And labor unions dominated the Democratic Party. Much like in California today.

One difference was that Michigan’s governors were Republicans, but they were liberal Republicans in the Schwarzenegger mold. In particular, Gov. George Romney, Mitt’s father, imposed the first state income tax and more than doubled the state budget in just six years in office. He was a Democrat in all but name.

But in the 2010s, Michigan’s Republican Party is resurgent — and offers lessons to California’s down-and-out GOP. L.A. Times columnist George Skelton and many others have suggested that the CA GOP would do better if it just became a lot more like the California Democratic Party.

The Michigan experience suggests the opposite. Two years ago, the state was a mess after eight years of Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Canadian born but raised from childhood in California’s Bay Area. Like Schwarzenegger, she also had a career in Hollylwood acting, although hers was brief. She now is teaching at U.C. Berkeley, so California taxpayers are paying for her pay, perks and pension as she teaches impressionable young minds how to misgovern.

Instead of trying to imitate Granholm and other Michigan Democrats, Michigan Republicans did the opposite: They strongly backed major budget reforms and tax cuts. They were rewarded with victory. The party now has large majorities in both houses of the Michigan Legislature. And Rick Synder is the popular, and mostly conservative, governor.

This has occurred even though the state remains mainly Democratic and voted for Barack Obama for president. The last time Michigan backed a Republican for the Oval Office was way back in 1988, the same as California.

A big reason for Republican success is that voters trust them to deal with the state’s financial messes, including effectively bankrupt Detroit. It’s not exactly clear what will happen, but actually dissolving the Motor City is one option.

In a similar fashion, former Mayor Richard Riordan has warned that Los Angeles is headed for bankruptcy.

Taking on the unions

A key part of the Republican resurgence in Michigan is taking on the unions. The Great Lake State was the cradle of the union movement a century ago. But now it has become a liability, with unions impeding reforms — the same as in California.

In the November election, the unions placed on the ballot Proposal 2, called by the unions the “Save Our Jobs” initiative. It would have given unions almost total authority over the state. Critics charged that it even would have protected unionized public-school teachers that were drunk or dealing drugs in the classroom. (That’s close to how California’s unions succeeded in defeating in our Legislature SB 1530, by state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles. It would have made it easier to get rid of teachers that use sex, drugs or violence against students.)

For Michigan’s union-backed Proposal 2, according to Ballotpedia, the unions massively outspent opponents by 22-to-1.

But Proposal 2 lost anyway, 57 percent to 43 percent.

Aggressive GOP

In the past, Republicans would have sighed in relief and gone back to their country clubs. (That’s certainly what Republicans did in California in the mid-1990s during their brief period of ascendance in the state Legislature.)

Not this time. As you may have heard, the Michigan Legislature just passed right-to-work laws, which Snyder signed into law. Payback time.

The reforms guarantee workers the right to join a union — or not join a union. The unions have boiled over with hatred. For them, “freedom” means forcing others to join their union. Here’s a typical response (note: bad language in the YouTube):

But here’s what it really means. An old journalistic comrade of mine, Patrick McGuigan of Oklahoma, described what happened when his state passed similar legislation:

“Congratulations, Michigan.

“In 2001, after decades of debate and a multi-million dollar campaign, voters in Oklahoma approved a ballot question enshrining the right to work in the state Constitution.

“Today, Oklahoma City has the lowest unemployment rate of any large American city. The state has outperformed much of the nation even during the depths of the Great Recession, and is projected to become one of the top states for job creation in the first quarter of 2013. Per capita personal income growth is outpacing the nation.

“Ultimately, the same results will come to Michigan.

“Monday, President Obama said the fight over Michigan’s right-to-work proposal is about politics and ideology, not economics.

“Politics is indeed part of the equation in any major policy shift in any American state — and that was certainly the case in Oklahoma in 2001, and in Indiana last year.

“But in the end, the proof is in the pudding: Oklahoma is evolving from its longstanding status as a poor, bottom-tier state into a steadily growing economy with a bright future — and that’s all about economics. Still, the strongest arguments for right to work are moral, rooted in rights of voluntary association and personal liberty.”

Audacity!

California desperately needs political competition. A one-party state never turns out well, whether in California or Cuba.

If Republicans want to get back in the ring and compete in California, the wrong strategy would be to mirror the Democrats.

Instead, they should look to the feisty Michigan GOP. They should take direct aim at the powerful unions. Make it a David vs. Goliath contest.

For starters, how about a right-to-work initiative on the ballot in 2014? Make sure it’s not a compromised initiative, like Proposition 32 was this year. The California unions ran ads attacking the loopholes for “special interests.”

Instead, get the ballot language from Oklahoma’s initiative, Question 695, which now is Section 23, Article 1A of the Oklahoma Constitution (text below). Make the new initiative about the unions themselves. Make it about union power. Because then the very exercise of that power — spending tens of millions of dollars in attack ads — itself is turned against the unions.

And every Republican in the state should make the right-to-work initiative the center of his campaign. No Democrat would dare buck the unions and back it. So it would be a clear contrast.

That also would help win Latino voters to the GOP. Because even many Democrats, such as former state Sen. Gloria Romero, are sick of how the the teachers’ unions care less about Latino students’ poor performance than about maintaining spiked pensions for teachers who aren’t even teaching any more.

When California state finances fall off a cliff, as they soon will, voters will look for the culprits. And as in Michigan, those culprits will be obvious: The Democratic Party and its union string-pullers.

For California Republicans, the key to victory is the same as when Danton exclaimed to the French Assembly in 1792: “Audacity! Audacity! Always audacity!”

————————

Here’s the language of Article 23, Section 1A of the Oklahoma Constitution:

SECTION XXIII-1A.

Right to work.

A.  As used in this section, “labor organization” means any organization of any kind, or agency or employee representation committee or union, that exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning wages, rates of pay, hours of work, other conditions of employment, or other forms of compensation.

B.  No person shall be required, as a condition of employment or continuation of employment, to:

1.  Resign or refrain from voluntary membership in, voluntary affiliation with, or voluntary financial support of a labor organization;

2.  Become or remain a member of a labor organization;

3.  Pay any dues, fees, assessments, or other charges of any kind or amount to a labor organization;

4.  Pay to any charity or other third party, in lieu of such payments, any amount equivalent to or pro rata portion of dues, fees, assessments, or other charges regularly required of members of a labor organization; or

5.  Be recommended, approved, referred, or cleared by or through a labor organization.

C.  It shall be unlawful to deduct from the wages, earnings, or compensation of an employee any union dues, fees, assessments, or other charges to be held for, transferred to, or paid over to a labor organization unless the employee has first authorized such deduction.

D.  The provisions of this section shall apply to all employment contracts entered into after the effective date of this section and shall apply to any renewal or extension of any existing contract.

E.  Any person who directly or indirectly violates any provision of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Added by State Question No. 695, Legislative Referendum No. 322, adopted at Special Election held on Sept. 25, 2001.

By John Seiler

“California is very hard to screw up,” noted author Victor Davis Hanson told about 130 California business and community leaders Wednesday. He spoke at the Freedom Forum held at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach. The event was co-sponsored by the Pacific Research Institute, CalWatchDog.com’s parent think tank, and the Lincoln Club of Orange County.

A classics scholar now at the Hoover Institution, Hanson comes from generations of farmers in Selma. He said the city now is at least 96 percent Hispanic. His observations there formed the basis of his controversial 2003 book, “Mexifornia: A State of Becoming.”

“California farm exports are $19 billion a year,” he said. “Farming is at an all-time high.”

As to immigration, he said, “Illegal immigration will stop, the natural melting-pot engine will assert itself” by absorbing the immigrants into the general American community and culture, “and things will get better.”

He pointed out that “the California budget last year” of $86 billion “is the same as the budget in 2006. Unlike the federal government, the state government can’t print money.” It has to balance its budget, more or less.

However, he lamented, “People are leaving who shouldn’t be leaving,” meaning working people who pay taxes.

National issues

On national issues, he dissected the Republican defeat a month earlier. He noted that Latinos gave only about a third of their vote to Mitt Romney. But they gave about the same amount to Ronald Reagan in 1984, even though he spearheaded immigration reform during that era that resulted in the 1986 amnesty program that normalized the status of millions of illegal immigrants.

“The GOP needs to engage the Latino vote,” he urged. Republicans, he warned, appear “not so much anti-Latino as anti-working class.”

He said he admired Romney and both presidents from the Bush family. But he noted that, along with Meg Whitman, the billionaire who lost the race for California governor in 2010, the Bushes and Romney are elevated too far above working-class voters to identify with them.

He said things were different for Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who won two elections for governor. Arnold reportedly is worth $700 million (at least before his divorce). But Arnold’s persona “as a movie star and immigrant” garnered 45 percent of the Latino vote.

Ignoring California

He criticized GOP presidential candidates for looking at California only as a place to get campaign donations. Even if California is unlikely to vote Republican in a presidential election any time soon, he still urged candidates to come here and meet our people. “They need to go to Bakersfield and engage people.” They should point out how “too many regulations” are killing jobs for the middle class.

He’s optimistic about the crop of potential candidates looking toward the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. He specifically mentioned candidates he thinks would have connections with working Americans: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

“I was a fan of Chris Christie,” the New Jersey governor, he quipped, “But I’m not anymore. Because I’m petty and I hold grudges.” Christie famously embraced President Obama during Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, which some conservative critics say helped the president gain votes nationally.

On the immigration question itself, he said Republicans should offer a two-part plan: First, a Dream Act variation that would grant amnesty to those already here. Second, totally sealing off the border so immigration is limited to legal immigration.

He also urged Republicans to play hardball with Democrats. If Democrats want taxes, then their wish should be granted — as taxes on liberal bastions. He said that, during World War II, a 50 cent surtax was placed on movie tickets.

He didn’t extrapolate. But that would be the equivalent to about a $5 surtax today.

Obama’s second term

Hanson said that, like all recent presidents, Obama faces a tough second term. Drawing on his classical background, he said that the president has what the ancient Greeks called “hubris” (extreme pride or arrogance) which inevitably brings about “nemesis” (the spirit or retribution).

Hanson said that Obama has cultivate class warfare to a degree not seen since the 1930s, in which achievers who earn more are envied by those getting government benefits. However, the “technocratic elite,” such as Obama and his cabinet, are exempt from this envy, even though they are exceedingly well off themselves.

He said hubristic actions by Obama include the blanket amnesty to illegal aliens granted without the approval of Congress; and trying to shut down a Boeing plant in South Carolina because it’s a right-to-work state that unions don’t like.

Nemesis will give Republicans opportunities to make gains before the 2014 mid-term election and the 2016 presidential election.

Katy Grimes: The chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has finally spoken out about what happened. And as expected, he’s playing down the significance of the loss.

In a Washington Post op ed, Romney’s Chief Strategist Stuart Stevens, said that President Barack Obama was “a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical.”

Calling the media “morally conflicted about being critical” of Obama is like saying that serial killer Ted Bundy was morally conflicted about the women he stalked and murdered. It didn’t stop him from killing – the results are still the same.

Cliff Kincaid, a journalist and media critic, recently took apart Stevens’ Washington Post op ed.

“If this is all Stuart Stevens takes away from the campaign coverage, he is woefully ill-informed about the nature of media bias,” Kincaid said. “While it is certainly true that reporters didn’t want to criticize the first black President, Stevens’ comment doesn’t explain the intensity of the media attacks on Romney and the media cover-ups on Obama’s behalf.”

Kincaid points out that Stevens was one of the advisers who told Romney that he should avoid criticizing the press.

While Stevens was the top strategist, there were others in the campaign equally responsible. Lobbyist and former top Republican official Ed Gillespie, publicly justified Romney’s silence on the gross liberal media bias when he said that the campaign had a “no whining rule” about media coverage.

Kincaid pointed out that even Democratic strategists had called on the Romney campaign to call out the many incidences of media bias and cover ups.

There’s a significant difference between whining during a competition, and calling out the cheaters. But this is the mainstream media in America today.

The Republican strategists are as responsible for the loss, because someone high up in the party decided what could and could not be discussed.

Self-censoring is as dangerous as being censored.

When will Republicans recognize that Democrats do not self-censor? They only seek to censor Republicans… and Ron Paul. So why do Republicans help them?

Senior strategists had also advised Republicans to avoid calling Obama a Marxist or socialist. The thinking was that undecided voters would be offended and vote for Obama anyway.

“Yes, the Republican Party has problems,” Stevens said, “but as we go forward, let’s remember that any party that captures the majority of the middle class must be doing something right.”

Most of the strategists are beltway insiders, and they get paid huge amounts of money even when they lose. Until this practice ends, nothing will change.

As wealthy commodities trader Randolph Duke explained to Eddie Murphy’s character in Trading Places, “The good part is that no matter whether our clients make money or lose money, Duke & Duke get the commissions.”