Things have gotten bad in California. So bad, in fact, as the New York Times recently reported, that some not insignificant number of San Franciscans are actually thinking of . . . voting Republican. The streets are filthy, crime is on the uptick, and government services are in decline. Add to that the city’s burgeoning homeless population—an excess generated at least in part by California’s generous welfare programs and the state’s year-round beautiful weather—and you begin to think of New York City in the early 1990s.

“People are starting to ask, ‘Maybe we need a Rudy Giuliani?’ ” one resident tells the Times. Giuliani, readers will remember, saved New York by bucking the doctrinaire liberalism of the city’s political and cultural elite and directing its police force to, you know, arrest people for breaking the law.