“California can't repudiate its debts. What it can do, however, is raise taxes and tuition and lay off teachers, cops and nurses.”

“Getting a state sickened by multiple toxic policies to elect someone whose name sounds like poison may be difficult, but perhaps not more so than getting to teach, unpaid, in East San Jose.”

“If [Tom] Campbell is nominated, he can win, but if Californians were sufficiently rational to nominate him, their state would not be shambolic.”

“If California has the courage and imagination to become a true laboratory of democracy, the [citizen delegates] experiment will be something to see.”

“[California's] wrenching experience suggests that, as a nation, we should begin to pare back government's future commitments to avoid a similar fate.”

“The Republican legislators only consider themselves accountable to the conservative districts that elect them ...”

“The conceit behind Californian exceptionalism ... is that we are ahead of the curve. That's true in fashion, it's true in culture, and I'd wager it will prove true in fiscal crises.”

“The lesson of California is not that California is weird. It is that you cannot trust a broken political process to fix itself in a moment of crisis.”

“California's cascading crises prefigure America's future unless Washington reverses the growth of government subservient to organized labor.”

“A California that decimates itself during recessions drags the rest of the nation down with it.”

“In reality, the federal government means to teach California's legislature an important fiscal lesson by making sure that they have to watch these people suffer, and know that it's partly their fault.”

“In Washington, the Age of Reagan may have shuddered to an inglorious end, but we also need action from state governments -- and Sacramento in particular -- to move us toward a more sustainable economic future.”

“California, it has long been claimed, is where the future happens first. But is that still true? If it is, God help America.”