"Berkeley voters lean to the right in 2004" reads the banner headline on the December 31st edition of the Berkeley Voice newspaper (no link available) which thumped on my driveway this morning. Of course, all things are relative, but still the largest local paper is on to something. The furthest—left member of the City Council did not submit her election papers in time (and blamed a staffer), and thus had to run as a write—in candidate, where she received a shockingly low number of votes. One hundred thiry—something.

The spendthrift city government, which granted municipal employees retirement benefits that would make a Congressman envious (on top of free sex change operations and all the perquisite other bells and whistles for same sex partners), has been pleading poverty and enormous deficits, and three times asked voters to approve tax increases. All three requests were handily defeated by the voters.

Berkeley remains a place where the looney left feels free to express its opinions as received wisdom, and few publicly dissent, but where I dared not display a Bush bumper sticker. A place where my favorite bakery takes May 1st as a holiday in honor of the workers of the world. A place where the city government blithely hands over free a parking lot valued at six million dollars to a developer who promises to build a commercial office building honoring the founder of the Sierra Club and hosting environmental groups. In the face of a larger than six million dollars budget deficit.

And yet, even Berkeley, for all the Bush—hatred, is getting a bit more conservative.

We are winning.

Thomas Lifson   12 31 04