Mixer: GOP wave not so golden

I’m sure you’re well aware of the good day that Republicans had in the midterm elections that took place this week.

The GOP won control of the United States Senate, took more governorships than had been expected and, well, had a really good election day.

But that wave may have diminished to a tiny ripple when it hit the California state line Tuesday night. Democrats once again won every statewide race in the Golden State from Governor Jerry Brown on down. But Republicans did poke some holes in other races.

John Myers, Senior Editor of the California Politics and Government Desk at KQED in San Francisco, and Rick Orlov, Political Reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News joined us to talk about whether the California GOP can build a comeback on what happened Tuesday, or whether the party is still missing in action.

GOP candidates did stop Democrats from regaining their supermajority in the legislature, but does ‘stopping a supermajority’ really make for such a narrative?

In a story in The Sacramento Bee, the state GOP Chairman Jim Brulte put it this way: “Democrats who come up here and tell the people in their district that they may be moderate, and then vote the liberal agenda, they are going to think twice, because three of them were taken out.”

Now, of course, the news media love a good story. With big banners on the screen and busy political reporters using big monitors with graphics and squiggly lines and circles.

But some politicos charge that what happened across the country last Tuesday is nothing more than a more excited GOP base than a Democratic one, something President Obama alluded to on Wednesday in a post-election speech and news conference.

“To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you,” Obama said from the White House. “To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you too.”

So the question continues to be: Is California impenetrably blue? Or can the GOP come back in this state?

Clearer answers, still to come on another Tuesday.