Letters to the Editor
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Jabba the Pombo
I lived in the district now represented by Richard Pombo for the first 21 years of my life. I went to school with some of his family members, graduating from Tracy High School, and then from University of the Pacific, in Stockton.
30 years ago, Tracy was a nice little town with a steady population of about 15,000 people. It was within commuting distance of Lawrence Livermore Lab, but with cheaper housing prices than Livermore itself, which was 15 miles over the Altamont Pass closer to the San Francisco Bay Area. The elite of Tracy were, for the most part, farmers - this was some of the richest farmland in the world.
Well, the farmers, with a few exceptions, are still the elite, but now they are called "real estate brokers" or, perhaps, the "idle rich." Because land prices in the SF Bay Area that should have encouraged higher population density instead (thanks to artificially low gas prices) encouraged massive suburban spread. In Tracy, the farmer who was my best friend's father got over $8 million for his 144 acres back in the early 1980's when a million dollars still meant something. He had 8 kids; I can't blame him for believing it was a fair price.
But farming communities are conservative communities - farmers don't have a lot of time for introspection or a lot of patience with intellectuals. Science is good when it helps and bad when it hurts, and nothing in a farmer's life is much more complicated than that.
Tracy now has over 75,000 people. These new people came for the McMansions (in spite of the commute) and are a very different breed from the old-timers. They mostly work in the high tech gold mines 50 miles to the west, where conservative politics are more commonly derided for being ignorant than praised for being simple.
Many of the new people have college degrees; many are immigrants who are less than comfortable with the covert racism they experience in their new digs.
And the conservatives in the area ARE SCARED. You can tell just by driving east over the Altamont Pass - a gateway from the SF Bay Area to California's Central Valley: over the past 3 years a large number of flags, crosses and "Bush Supporter" signs have sprung up, carved into hillsides, hanging from outbuildings and fences, where before there were none. The message is clear: If you're a liberal, go back. We don't want you here.
Tough shit, I guess. They wanted money, so they called it progress, and they got it.
If the Dems put up a viable candidate, Pombo will be on K Street (or just "idling") after this year.