A letter originally published in the December 7, 1911, issue, shortly after the passage of numerous amendments to the California Constitution, including the provision for the recall of all elective officers–which, as the letter writer notes, passed overwhelmingly by 77 percent–gives a hint that politics in California is in a class to itself.

In “The Politics of Personality,” from the issue of October 27, 1962, former Nation editor and California historian Carey McWilliams reports on the race for governor between the challenger Richard Nixon and incumbent Pat Brown: “the most expensive–and the noisiest–campaign in California’s political history.”