Found this interesting out of the Golden State...

This article talked about an attempt at a start-up newspaper that didn't appear to take off and then we see some interesting background in this story:

Term limits backed by pre-Mayor Riordan meant that post-Mayor Riordan wasn't mayor anymore—the odious James Hahn had won the run-off election—but Dick Riordan maintained his mayoral title amongst his friends and underlings. And in his new boredom, the very wealthy investment lawyer and politician was thinking about publishing a newspaper. Parties unknown had suggested he get in touch with the people behind the L.A. Examiner. When Welch and I were first summoned to Riordan's low-slung California rambler in Brentwood a few weeks later, we met a garrulous and somewhat disheveled old Irishman full of zeal and filthy jokes. He was always a kind host and gave his scruffy low-income visitors his full attention—during one session in his Mexican-tiled living room, the unseen presence of his personal secretary had to repeatedly remind him by intercom that his friend Bill Clinton was waiting on the line. As in New York City, Riordan's birthplace, a moderate Republican in coastal California is a moderate Democrat anywhere else in the country. I liked him right away.

California's angry Republican base did not care for Riordan at all, and it was this reality that kept him out of the governor's mansion. Riordan had the lead over Gov. Gray Davis, the unloved Democrat, but he couldn't win the GOP primary. On March 5 of 2002, the alleged RINO Riordan lost badly to Bill Simon, who talked tough and had once worked for September 11 hero Rudy Giuliani, who at that point had still somehow saved America from terrorism by being the mayor of New York on 9/11.

Hmmm, the Mayor of LA Richard Riordan a Republican. At that a moderate Republican who anywhere else is a Democrat or if he stayed Republican a "RINO". And in California, the GOP isn't exactly a powerful and vibrant breed and yet primary GOP voters couldn't get with a so-called "RINO".

I could see a parallel between California vs. Illinois, there. I'm not certain about California politics except to say that Democrats have solid majorities there. While seasoned Gov. Jerry Brown seems to have made some good moves this could beg the question anywhere. Could any state be well served by having only one party in power at all levels of Government?