California Republicans have a bad habit of making exaggerated claims about people leaving the state. Perhaps that’s because the subject cuts too close to home.
Because prominent statewide Republican candidates keep getting out of the Golden State.
The latest is Neel Kashkari, the 2014 GOP candidate for governor, who left for a very good job: president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
He comes on the heels of the departures of two leading Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate in 2010: Carly Fiorina, who moved to Virginia and is now running for president, and Chuck DeVore, who decamped for Texas, where he has been part of a smart Texas think tank. (I had the privilege of visiting with Chuck in its Austin offices last year).
All three had personal reasons for leaving. But it doesn’t speak well for a party when their candidates for office see fit to leave so quickly after losing.
Does running for office as a Republican in California have a way of souring you on the state? And if so, which is the more dispiriting? Running as a Republican (with the albatross of the party brand and little institutional backing from the party)? Or running in California?