#  Lessons From a California Comeback

     Details    Paul Krugman   ![logo](https://mail.citywatchla.com//templates/ja_teline_v/images/logo.png)         April 01 2013       [ARCHIVE](https://mail.citywatchla.com/archive)   - [  Previous Article **Legal Wars: LA’s Mobile Billboard Ban Upheld by Court** ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4791:legal-wars-la-s-mobile-billboard-ban-upheld-by-court&catid=16)
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> ![](https://mail.citywatchla.com/images/stories/Apr-2013/cw11027i.png)GUEST COMMENTARY - Modern movement conservatism, which transformed the GOP from the moderate party of Dwight Eisenhower into the radical right-wing organization we see today, was largely born in California. The Golden State, even more than the South, created today’s religious conservatism; it elected Ronald Reagan governor; it’s where the tax revolt of the 1970s began. But that was then. In the decades since, the state has grown ever more liberal, thanks in large part to an ever-growing nonwhite share of the electorate.

 As a result, the reign of the Governator aside, California has been solidly Democratic since the late 1990s. And ever since the [political balance shifted](http://www.economist.com/node/21557757 "The Economist"), conservatives have declared the state doomed. Their specifics keep changing, but the moral is always the same: liberal do-gooders are bringing California to its knees.

A dozen years ago, the state was supposedly doomed by all its environmentalists. You see, the eco-freaks were blocking power plants, and the result was crippling blackouts and soaring power prices.

“The country’s showcase state,” gloated The Wall Street Journal, “has come to look like a hapless banana republic.”

But a funny thing happened on the road to collapse: it turned out that the main culprit in the [electricity crisis](http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/20/local/me-23845 "Los Angeles Times") was deregulation, which opened the door for ruthless market manipulation. When the market manipulation went away, so did the blackouts. *([Read the rest … including how reports of California’s demise have proved premature … here)](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/opinion/krugman-lessons-from-a-comeback.html?_r=1&&pagewanted=print)*

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 11 Issue 27

Pub: Apr 2, 2013

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