My adopted home is on the ropes, and Joel Kotkin explains why in this fine article about the rise and fall of California.

Kotkin did not forsee the passage of Prop 11, however, (few of us did) and the political crisis he describes could only be resolved through the end of gerrymandering which has driven California liberals over the far-left cliff.  If the redistricting initiative is not undermined by the legislature or the California Supreme Court --which managed to ignite the nastiest political battle in the state since Prop 187-- The elections of 2012 will be across new and very competitive districts and could well draw new energy into Golden State politics which has been a dead end for more than a decade.

The California crisis is a perfect example of liberal interest group governance, and the collapse of its budget and its job creation energy will follow in any political unit that follows its lead, no matter how large.

Key graphs from the Kotkin piece:

You can blame many factors for California’s fall from grace: too much immigration from poor countries, the impact of global competition on technology and aerospace industries, the end of the Cold War, failing schools, and the 12 years of political control by the Texas-centric Bushes. Yet other states have weathered similar storms and still gained ground on the Golden State.

The real problem lies in the decline of the state’s political culture. “Our society may be evolving spectacularly but our politics are devolving,” suggests [Kevin] Starr, the state’s most eminent historian. “California is in no way a role model for anyone from outside the state.”...

California’s shift to the Democrats had become inexorable and, with the fading of a GOP counterweight, influence within the party flowed to its more radical factions further to the political left. As a result, the state moved decisively away from the economic growth focus of Pat Brown. It seemed determined to wage war against its own economy. As pet social programs, entitlements, and state employee pensions soared, infrastructure spending—the hallmark of the Pat Brown regime and once 20 percent of the state budget—shrank to less than 3 percent.

The educational system, closely aligned with the Democrats in the legislature, accelerated its secular decline. Once full of highly skilled workers, California has become increasingly less so. For example, California ranks second in the percentage of its 65-year-olds holding an associate degree or higher and fifth in those with a bachelor’s degree. But when you look at the 25-to-34 age group, those rankings fade to 30th and 24th.

Instead of reversing these trends, the state legislature decided to spend its money on public employees and impose ever more regulatory burdens on business.

The elections of 2010 will see very little in the way of change within the state legislature because of gerrymandered districts, but if either Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner take over from Arnold in two years, a smart and successful new governor with deep experience in business growth and technological innovation will be in place when the class of 2012 arrives from legislative districts drawn without regard to incumbency, and perhaps the state's political class will begin the hard work necessary to restoring California's economic growth, without which nothing else can be renovated or renewed.

I hope you can see a banner above and a box to the side displaying "A Christmas Challenge" on behalf of children in the Dominican Republic.  From now until after Christmas I will be seeking sponsors of children in the DR to join me in helping one or more young girls or boys out of the worst poverty you can imagine and into lives of sufficiency and happiness.

For many in the U.S. it is a very tough season, and that means an economic disaster for thousands more in the DR which depends so heavily on the upside of proximity to the States.  When I visited the DR in July, the residents worried about a soft American tourism sector.  I can only imagine how the national slow-down has impacted the island.

I am reprinting the account of my trip from the summer and hope that you and your family will consider beginning this Thanksgiving-Christmas season with a sponsorship of a DR child.   At the link you will find a profile of one DR boy or girl to consider sponsoring. There are 3,000 children waiting for sponsors in the DR, and our formal goal is to find 250 of them a sponsor.  Children International has been at work for more than 70 years, and they screen the children to find those who not only desperately need the assistance your sponsorship brings but who can also be reached and worked with.

Thank you for considering the request.  Here is the account of my trip there six months ago:

Nine Houses

Children International is a humanitarian relief organization whose sponsors support more than 320,000 children in 11 countries.  I have been working with them since last year when listeners to my radio program signed up to sponsor more than 250 children during the Christmas season, and another 100 in the week before Easter.  (If as a result of today's broadcast or reading this post, you'd like to join in sponsoring a child in the DR, please send me an e-mail with your contact info to hugh@hughhewitt.com.)



Though I had thoroughly investigated CI before agreeing to serve as one of their spokespeople and knew of their very sterling reputation for effectiveness and efficiency, CI suggested that I would be better equipped to explain the program to my audience if I visited one of the 11 countries in which they work.  CI is non-sectarian and establishes community service centers in impoverished regions of the countries in which they work which are staffed with medical and dental personnel, social workers and volunteers drawn from the communities being served.  The aim is to rescue sponsored children from the most abject poverty via years of medical, educational support and small economic interventions aimed at meeting the basic needs of the child while supplementing whatever public education is available through training and workshops geared to the age of the children, culminating in intensive transition training as the child nears adulthood.


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The attacks in India will catapult theABC report of a threat in NYC to the top of every newspaper tomorrow.

Check the Times of India, CounterrorismWatch and Belmont Clubm, for updates.

When highly coordinated attacks like those in India unfold, the families of victims have to wonder whether the attacks might have been prevented but for the blows to surveillance of terrorism suspects brought about by leaks such as those involving the Swift program that tracked terrorist financing.  The New York Times defended its actions and those of the Los Angeles Times at the time, but it is in the aftermath of deadly attacks that we should all revisit the recklessness of MSM in dealing with such matters.

No one will ever be able to prove whether an uncompromised Swift program might have penetrated such a big ring of terrorists, but at the time of the controversy, I did interview the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus, who admitted that the story might have helped terrorists elude capture.  When hell breaks loose, we ought to remind ourselves that the media has in the past decided for itself when security could be breached. 

The villains are the terrorists, of course, but their lives are made easier by every leak of a national security secret.

The War Against the West goes on.

Norm Coleman's lead in Minnesota is at 231 votes with 82% of the recount complete.

There are less than 4,000 challenged ballots to be reviewed by the five member State Canvassing Board, so a very clear picture of the final result should be available soon, just in time for the Georgia runoff next week.  Saxby Chambliss appears on today's program, and the Chuck Schumer-led Senate Dems are pouring cash into Georgia to try and get closer to 60.  Please consider one last gift of $25, $50 or $100 to www.Saxby.org, and make sure you call every Republican you know in Georgia and urge them to vote today (the last day for early voting).

Powerline's Scott Johnson runs through various Minnesota recount developments here.

Campaign 2010 will get off to a quick start, and nowhere more quickly than in Pennsylvania, where Arlen Specter will run again.  I supported him in 2004 and will be doing so enthusiastically again in 2010, and hope that Club for Growth's talented Pat Toomey doesn't run against Specter but instead for the Statehouse.  The Los Angeles Times provides an early look at this race and the possible candidacy of MSNBC's likeable liberal Chris Matthews. 

10% of the proceeds goes to WorldVision, so it is a great way to carry Advent with you through the day.

You gotta say so when he is so.

The economics side of Team Obama is impressive, and the GOP should be worried that the president-elect intends to talk left and govern right. 

They should be really, really worried if the senior members of the team start appearing on new media, confident of their views and eager to engage.  (No sign of that to date.) 

The GOP is convinced the Dems will overreach, and it will probably come in the area of cap-and-trade, card-check, plaintiffs' bar gifts etc, crippling the economic growth that the incoming free-marketeers endorse.  Watch for the first clash of the punish-the-rich lefties and the folks who actually know how the markets work.

UPDATE:  Larry Kudlow agrees.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)

This is very good news:

In addition to consumer spending, the Fed announced it would buy up to $100 billion in mortgages held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank in an effort increase the flow of money into the housing markets and lower interest rates. The Fed may also buy another $500 billion in bundles of mortgage backed securities issued by the agencies.

The aim of the program is to "reduce the cost and increase the availability of credit for the purchase of houses, which in turn should support housing markets and foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally."

The collapse of housing triggered the recession, and the lack of mortgage financing has deepened it.  Jump starting the home mortgage market is a common sense approach to stimulus. 

Brian Wesbury, chief economist of First Trust, has argued on my program in the past two weeks that equities are a great buy right now, and that real estate had reached its correct value.   With some mortgage rate relief, housing could recover quickly.

We are a year or so away from the ability to judge the response of the government to the panic of '08, but the huge injection of liquidity seems likely to prove itself as the right response to unique, panic-driven conditions.  If this does turn out to be the right antidote to a rare but recurring illness, conservatives should not hesitate to say so and then build a primer on when and where it ought to be deployed so as to protect against its overuse in the future.

The former Arkansas governor and once (and future) presidential candidate wa my guest yesterday to discuss his new book, Do the Right Thing.  We covered the books blasts at Mitt Romney, Huck's "Mormon problem," the Fair Tax, the media in the campaign, evolution, class politics and a bit on global warming until we ran out of time.

The transcript is here.  The podcast is here.



 

As an occasional guest over the past few years on Hannity & Colmes, I have gone more than a few rounds with Alan.  He's a pro, always a gentleman, and while rarely right in his analysis, has always been a pleasure to spar with.  I hope Fox keeps him front and center in the years ahead as he is certain to have excellent sources inside the Obama Administration.

Victor Davis Hanson pens a blunt ten-point assessment of our current situation, but I think he should follow up with the 10 best things he sees about him.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)

Number one among the hopeful signs is a new generation of leaders in the making who have fought in the war over the past seven years and who are clear-eyed about the enemy and about what it requires to defeat the enemy. 

Number two is the arrival of General Petraeus at CentCom and the new focus on Afghanistan allowed by the unfolding victory in Iraq.  Today's Los Angeles Times carries a story on the possible shift of more Marines to the Afghan battlefield.  Whether it is a mixed Army-Marines force, or one tilting towards the USMC, the Taliban and their terrorist allies seem destined for a very difficult four years as the president-elect has made their defeat his key overseas objective.

There are other enormously encouraging developments, including the distribution of vast amounts of technology to millions of individuals whose counterparts a generation ago would have been blessed to have a typewriter.  Technology of course doesn't convert ignorance into genius, but it does facilitate the exchange of information and the rise of genius.  (For one example, visit www,amaze.fm. launched a month ago, which allows you to sample musicians who have never been close to a record label deal.)

VDH might also have noted that the ongoing collapse of the old media has opened up the world to information networks --some already here and growing like Townhall.com and PJTV.com, others still years away from launch--  which are supplanting the already greatly diminished power of the old media.

Some of my colleagues bemoan what they see as old media's triumph in the November elections, but they mistake the bias of the old media for its effectiveness.  While the partisan cheering of the MSM for the president-elect was full-throated and un-ending, it isn't possible to argue that the MSM brought about the defeat of John McCain.  It wasn't close enough to argue as much, and the country generally knew everything about Barack Obama that it wanted to know.  The new media will now exist as a crucial check on the new Adminstration, the adventures of which will not be receiving much in the way of critical examination from their pets in the MSM.

Then there is the non-collapse of capitalism.  Shock after shock has hit the free market system in the past three months, and each has shaken but not toppled the confidence of the average American.  There aren't runs on banks or panic in the streets.  Increasingly sane and sober voices are emerging to note that this is a nasty recession, but that market cycles bring nasty recessions, and they also bring their end.  Full-scale interventions may not have worked as well as anyone would have liked, but the overall effect has been to steady the system and convey the truth that the U.S. economy remains the world's leader.

VDH's pessimism about the public education system is hard to rebut --in part.  Some public school systems are in collapse, while others turn out thousands of extraordinarily bright and accomplished students with enormously appealing skills sets and bright futures of enormous productivity and achievement.  Figuring out how to increase the number of the latter while shrinking the former is a huge challenge, but one that can be met. 

So, as Thanskgiving Week opens, there is much to celebrate, including a country whose commitment to freedom and opportunity allows for the rise of a president-elect from the unlikeliest of circumstances.  Anything is possible in America, and usually much good comes from that basic, unchanging fact.

President-elect Obama's refusal to rule out tax hikes in this fragile economic environment means that the GOP's victories in Minnesota and Georgia are crucial to retaining any kind of a breakwall in the Congress.

Norm Coleman has a 180 vote lead with 68% of the vote recounted a second time.  As a hand review of 2/3rds of the ballots cost Norm a net of 35 votes, it is hard to imagine that the last third will swing so drastically against him, so it will then be up to the State Canvassing Board to review the two to three thousand "challenged" ballots.  Powerline's Scott Johnson relays one nightmare scenario, but it may underestimate the power of the combination of the State Canvassing Board, which includes two Minnesota Supreme Court Justices, making a court reversal of its ruling on absentees much more unlikely in my mind.  Nor is there the sort of ad hoc, county-by-county shifting standards that led to Bush v.Gore.  LetFreedomRing explains why Minnesota '08 isn't Florida 2000.

The run-off in Georgia is next Tuesday, and the campaigning never let up for a day.  If you have $25 or $50 left to keep the U.S. Senate as a bulwark against really bad ideas, send it to Saxby Chambliss today.

means the return of Dave Barry blogging Jack.

Read the comments and you'll see why this one shot to the top of the www.amaze.fm chart for the week. 

Amid reports that the retailers are hurrying the Christmas shopping season, and hobbled by a cold, I am taking the weekend off and opening the Hugh Store for holiday shopping.

There will be a couple of more offerings next week, including my latest on the rebuilding of the GOP, but here are three possible gifts for the HH Show listener on your list.

The War Against the West brings together the most important interviews I have done in the past four years with experts on the war against Islamist extremism.  These experts range across the political and professional spectrum, but whether it is Looming Tower author Lawrence Wright, historian Victor Davis Hanson, New York Times reporter John Burns or General David Petraeus, each of the experts knows their subject matter thoroughly and brings crucial knowledge on the enemy to the conversation.  The audio version will be available in a few weeks, but the book provides a primer to the essential facts about the enemy.




For younger readers on your list:  A Guide To Christian Ambition has been issued in paperback, and remains a favorite gift for high school and college students as well as young adults looking ahead to careers in which they hope to influence the world for the good.



For everyone on your gift list who wishes they knew more about William Shakespeare but don't know how to get started, send them my program with the United States Naval Academy's David Allen White, one of the country's great professors, who has been teaching the Midshipmen their Bard for more than a quarter century.  This CD is all the introduction you will ever need to get hook on the great playwright.



And finally, for the HH Show junkie who wants to relive one of the most interesting years ever in radio, there's the Best of the Hugh Hewitt Show massive CD pack, with 14 CDs of the best conversations of the year.



Buy one or all, and check back next week as the other new products for this season roll out.

My new Townhall.com column looks at the possibility of a reverse "Operation Chaos" in 2012.

Some transcripts from today's interviews:

Karl Rove

Three of the GOP's best new technologies wizards

Glenn Reynolds, and

Mark Steyn