The sky over Massachusetts is reported to have fallen last night. But California isn’t Massachusetts, and it certainly isn’t Washington, D.C., where the reverberations are being felt.
If, at a superficial level, both the Bay State and the Golden State can be labeled reliably Blue, yesterday’s outcome may bolster the hopes of California Republicans who are fueling their 2010 campaigns with the hope that their party is not destined to chronic irrelevancy.
But if you look at the size and ethnic make up of both states’ electorates, it is immediately evident that the two places have little in common politically.
Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown and every one of California’s Democratic leaders would be well served to scrutinize the data coming out of Massachusetts, and to overlay that information on what they already know about political attitudes and trends in California. But they need to be very thoughtful about the conclusions they draw.