Solution for a divided country

We all agree that the country is polarized and you look at the electoral map with a polarizing filter and you can see how. Thomas Leavitt at Seeing the Forest has a solution.

Left Coast Republic?

Kerry won a solid victory in California (actually, an overwhelming one there, 55% to 44%, a margin of over 1 million votes), Oregon, Washington State and Hawaii, winning every state by a margin of 5% or more... and Democrats, up and down the ticket, also won solid victories. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the nation (outside of the Northeast and Great Lakes states). There is obviously a great difference in values and priorities between these states and much of the rest of the country.

I suggest that they secede from the union - the resulting entity would have a vital and diverse economic engine, be home to some of the largest and most dynamic companies in the world, and we'd save billions (now and in the future) in taxes that we now send to Washington and never get back ($40 billion a year from CA alone, more than enough to heal that state's $8 billion dollar budget deficit) and payments on the $7 trillion (and mounting) national debt.

Of course, we'd probably wind up with a President Schwarzenegger... but I think most of us would prefer that to a President Bush, not to mention a solidly liberal Democratic Senate and House. I'm sure Red State America would love to be rid of us.

Maybe we could recruit British Columbia as well. :)

Five states (maybe California could split into two or three states?), 50 million people, sane government, seems reasonable to me!

Of course this is not the first time this has been suggested, we here on the "Left Coast" have been swimming up stream for a long time. I would like to include our blue friends in the East as well.