Or so Wendy Albright would have us believe, according to her revealing interview at the Beacon yesterday.
In particular, the aggressive self-described RINO hunter says there are three reasons why the GOP remains so strong in the SCV:
I don't quibble on points one or two, the SCV is community-minded and retains its small town feel even as it boasts a population of a quarter of a million people and is the third largest City in the County. And I'd put the SCV up against any community when it comes to volunteering.
But self-reliant? Come again? The SCV is anything but self-reliant.
Albright uses the term "self reliant' in a very deliberate and evocative way. She's invoking images of America's great westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, Davey Crockett, the Alamo and the original 49er pioneers who scratched and scraped their way into California searching for gold before there was a Discovery TV show to chronicle their adventures. You know, rugged individualists and all that.
Don't get me wrong. We do have self-reliant, up-by-your-bootstraps figures in SCV history. Henry Mayo Newhall was one such man, who, as a young lad left Massachusetts and started up an auction house in San Francisco where he became fabulously wealthy. He then bought a bunch of land which we all live on. The men who found oil and built a town in Mentryville, the blacks who settled in Val Verde, and the folks who lived off the land in Newhall, Saugus, and other areas were no doubt hardy, self-reliant people.
But the SCV of 2013 -including SCV Republicans!- are anything but self-reliant. We get half our water from one of those big government, centrally-planned boondoggles the GOP often complains about, the California State Water Project. We're so dependent on a big government program that when a tiny endangered fish gets sucked into pumps and dies in the Sacramento delta, half our water supply is threatened because some judge orders the pumps shut down. That's not self reliance. That's complete and utter dependence.
And Valencia itself would never have been built if it weren't for the federal government building the might I-5 through these parts in the 60s and 70s. The best we self-reliant SCVers could manage as far as transportation goes was the Old Road, the ultra-dangerous Ridge Route and Beale's Cut.
Then there's the fact that during weekdays, at least a quarter of the population of the SCV leaves town for work in cities that actually are self-reliant. And those lucky enough to find quality jobs in the SCV are more than likely to work for a government agency of some kind. The City's top-employers chart shows that five of the top ten employers in the SCV are public agencies of some type, whether school districts or, gasp, the Postal Service.
Without the gubmn't workers Republicans have so much fun bashing, we would scarcely have any quality local jobs. And without the mortgage interest rate deduction the federal government provides to homeowners, a whole lot of independent realtors wouldn't be able to sell as many as homes.
From top to bottom, the SCV is not self-reliant. The SCV is a high desert semi-arid place where the living would be hard, brutal, and wind-swept were it not for infrastructure built by our government through collective -not individual- action.
SCV & GOP go together like peas and carrots
In particular, the aggressive self-described RINO hunter says there are three reasons why the GOP remains so strong in the SCV:
SCV Republicans have long had a much greater success record in getting locally elected than have Republicans in other parts of California. What do you see is the reason or reasons for this success?In my humble opinion, Republicans in Santa Clarita enjoy a higher success rate than that of the state GOP because of three critical factors:
1. The volunteer base in Santa Clarita – Santa Clarita was founded by a citizenry who wanted to determine their own future. The area has a long history of residents who want to be engaged in the process be it political, civil, environmental, or other. This naturally extends to elections.
2. The sense of community in Santa Clarita – One of the main reasons people like to live in Santa Clarita is because we have a sense of community. People are willing to work together on common causes, or problems, until a workable resolution is achieved. Again, this naturally extends to elections.
3. The area characteristic of self-reliance – The Santa Clarita Valley is geographically cut off from the rest of the state and it created a need for the power of self-reliance in the area which is still prevalent today.When you combine strong beliefs in self-reliance with a community that is determined to chart its own future, you are creating a natural strong hold for Republican success.
I don't quibble on points one or two, the SCV is community-minded and retains its small town feel even as it boasts a population of a quarter of a million people and is the third largest City in the County. And I'd put the SCV up against any community when it comes to volunteering.
But self-reliant? Come again? The SCV is anything but self-reliant.
Albright uses the term "self reliant' in a very deliberate and evocative way. She's invoking images of America's great westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, Davey Crockett, the Alamo and the original 49er pioneers who scratched and scraped their way into California searching for gold before there was a Discovery TV show to chronicle their adventures. You know, rugged individualists and all that.
Don't get me wrong. We do have self-reliant, up-by-your-bootstraps figures in SCV history. Henry Mayo Newhall was one such man, who, as a young lad left Massachusetts and started up an auction house in San Francisco where he became fabulously wealthy. He then bought a bunch of land which we all live on. The men who found oil and built a town in Mentryville, the blacks who settled in Val Verde, and the folks who lived off the land in Newhall, Saugus, and other areas were no doubt hardy, self-reliant people.
But the SCV of 2013 -including SCV Republicans!- are anything but self-reliant. We get half our water from one of those big government, centrally-planned boondoggles the GOP often complains about, the California State Water Project. We're so dependent on a big government program that when a tiny endangered fish gets sucked into pumps and dies in the Sacramento delta, half our water supply is threatened because some judge orders the pumps shut down. That's not self reliance. That's complete and utter dependence.
And Valencia itself would never have been built if it weren't for the federal government building the might I-5 through these parts in the 60s and 70s. The best we self-reliant SCVers could manage as far as transportation goes was the Old Road, the ultra-dangerous Ridge Route and Beale's Cut.
Then there's the fact that during weekdays, at least a quarter of the population of the SCV leaves town for work in cities that actually are self-reliant. And those lucky enough to find quality jobs in the SCV are more than likely to work for a government agency of some kind. The City's top-employers chart shows that five of the top ten employers in the SCV are public agencies of some type, whether school districts or, gasp, the Postal Service.
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Without the gubmn't workers Republicans have so much fun bashing, we would scarcely have any quality local jobs. And without the mortgage interest rate deduction the federal government provides to homeowners, a whole lot of independent realtors wouldn't be able to sell as many as homes.
From top to bottom, the SCV is not self-reliant. The SCV is a high desert semi-arid place where the living would be hard, brutal, and wind-swept were it not for infrastructure built by our government through collective -not individual- action.
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