Hope you enjoyed the party, because you may not be invited back in November.
The upshot of the most hotly contested California primary since bell-bottoms were in -- the first time -- was a hardening of the state's Democratic tilt and a proportionate drop in Republican support here.
Add in the ability of independent voters to cast ballots in the Democratic primary Tuesday -- allowed by party leaders who believe those voters will stay loyal in November. With all that, it is at best questionable whether California will be a contested state in the general election.
Democrats, easy winners of the last four presidential elections here, laugh off the suggestion that the state will be seriously contested come fall.
"If the Democratic nominee has to spend a dime in California, we're going to lose the election," said Ben Austin, a Democratic strategist backing Barack Obama.
Even Republicans say that for California to be, in November, the focus it has been in February would require a confluence of events: John McCain as the nominee, character as the defining issue and a decision that the cost of running a campaign here is worth the exceptional expense it would take.
"To an objective observer, the trend is not the GOP's friend in California," said Don Sipple, a Republican veteran of national and statewide campaigns.
A look at registration figures bears him out: Democrats gained four voters in the last two months to every one gained by Republicans. That left Democrats at just under 43% of the registered voters. Republicans note that is a historic low. The trouble is that Republicans are lower: just over 33% of registered voters. (The fastest-growing segment, independents, constituted 19.37%.)
A survey of 12 key counties, moreover, showed the difficulties facing Republicans. In all but one, Democratic registration inched up between September and the close of registration Jan. 22. The exception was bellwether San Benito County, where Democratic registration fell by a tenth of a percent.
In all of the counties, the percentage of voters who are registered Republicans dropped. That included counties like Riverside, where the GOP has hoped that growth in the spreading subdivisions would be their bulwark against the preponderance of Democrats in the cities. There, Republican registration dropped by almost a point. Other declines came in Kern, Fresno, Orange, San Bernardino, Sacramento, San Diego and San Benito counties.
