Word: nationals
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...perilous to generalize about a place this gigantic, an overwhelmingly metropolitan state that leads the nation in agricultural production, a majority-minority state with a white-majority electorate. There are real differences between (crunchy, techy) Northern and (hipster, surfer) Southern California, and especially (richer, denser, bluer) coastal and (poorer, sparser, redder) inland California. But one generalization has held true from the Gold Rush to the human-potential movement to the dotcom boom: California stands for change, for disruption of the status quo. "California is not another American state," concluded Carey McWilliams in his 1949 history California: The Great Exception...
...California is a state of early adopters - not only in fashion, technology and design but in politics too. Its voters approved huge bonds for stem-cell research, high-speed rail and repairs to aging infrastructure while Washington was dragging its feet; its politicians adopted first-in-the-nation greenhouse-gas regulations, green building codes and efficiency standards for automobiles and appliances that have rearranged the national energy debate. Yes, it was also an early adopter of subprime mortgages - Countrywide, Golden West and IndyMac were all California-based - but life on the frontier has always been risky. "This is the most...
...live in California, where rooftop installations have doubled for two years in a row, to 50,000, heading to the state goal of 1 million by 2017. The San Francisco utility Pacific Gas & Electric, which recently bolted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over climate policy, has 40% of the nation's solar roofs in its territory. SunPower now has more than 5,000 employees. It's building massive power plants for utilities, as well as roof panels for big-box stores, complete subdivisions and individual homes. Prices are plummeting, and competition is fierce, most of it from California firms like...
...state's other private-sector centers of innovation. So it's been a juicy target for right-wingers who consider Schwarzenegger a squishy sellout. If a low-carbon, Big Government, change-obsessed state with high taxes on the wealthy, draconian environmental regulations, a porous border and the nation's most vibrant labor movement were imploding, what would that say about the age of Obama...
...Then again, the home state of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan has been a conservative trendsetter as well, leading the backlash against taxes, affirmative action and illegal aliens and enacting the first three-strikes law against career criminals. Its economy is much closer than the nation's to a true model of free-enterprise capitalism, in which government sets rules and enforces a level playing field but declines to pick winners. And what could be more Californian than the conservative megapastor Rick Warren urging his multimedia flock to make a fresh start with a forgiving God? "A clean slate...