America is a young punk country with a knack for reinvention — political traditions don’t stick to our ribs. In case you needed any proof, look to California. Not 30 years ago, it helped elect George H.W. Bush, part of a 20-year streak of voting for Republican presidential candidates, including two of its own native sons, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Arianna Huffington was a prominent California Republican many, many naps ago, and Joan Didion was an unabashed Goldwater Girl who once wrote that if Barry Goldwater had “remained the same age and continued running, I would have voted for him in every election.”
But times have changed. CONT.
Clare Malone, FiveThirtyEight