Anyways, some people on this forum may be underating Angelides. He was the California Democratic chair from 1991-1993. California basically changed from a Republican state to a Democratic state in that period. DiFi won a Republican Senate seat, while the other seat went to liberal Boxer. In the previous 10 Presidential elections, California had only gone for LBJ in his blowout landslide. California is now a safe Democrat state.
maybe i'm missing something, but why do you think in a brief two year period california became a democratic state? that is an awfully short period of time. It seems like it usually takes at least 10 years for a state to shift completely from one side to the other.
In fact, it took the whole '90s for the state to become a Dem stronghold. In addition to the increased participation and support for Democrats by Latinos, the '90s saw the collapse of the Southern California defense economy and the emergence of the technology sector as a dominant force in Norcal.
The most striking gains by Dems have been in the bay area suburbs which used to lean moderately gop but are now dem strongholds and in non-O.C. southern California suburbs. Consider that in '00, a total of five suburban CA GOP districts flipped to Dems.
Curiously, while in other Dem-leaning states (like say NY, PA, or until, 2002, IL) GOPers still hold on to power in statehouses, in CA Dems were able to completely obliterate the GOP in legislative elections in the traditionally GOP suburban areas. This actually may have been an inadvertant consequence of term limits which forced entrenched GOP incumbents to retire, leaving open seats for an up-and-coming Democratic party.
