ONE-PARTY STATE: Wave of Republican Congressional Retirements in California.

With this wave of GOP retirements in Congress, Democrats have got to be fired up for massive gains in the November elections. This is more than tsunami territory, as far as I can see. This is going to be an earthquake with world shattering implications. Worlds are colliding!

Roll Call called it in September, “House Retirement Tide Is Coming.”

Ed Royce of Buena Park announced he was retiring on Monday. And now today we have the news of Darrell Issa’s retirement. These two aren’t noobs. They’re powerful GOP congressional veterans. Plus, Royce has a huge war chest of over $3 million in the bank, and Issa’s independently wealthy — so campaign finance isn’t the issue. It’s two things: (1) Donald Trump’s iconoclastic presidency has shaken up American politics and many Republicans will be the target of ire as surrogates for all kinds of voter disenchantment with politics, and (2) California’s formerly solid Republican majority in Orange County is history.

If memory serves, George W. Bush in 2002 was the only postwar President whose House majority gained seats in an off-year election — and that was coming on the heels of an expertly waged Afghanistan offensive in the months after 9/11.