I grew up in CA... and the CA you met in 1972 was a far cry from what it was in '50s & '60s. Those liberals you mention coming from someplace else? They came from those snow bound states on the eastern seaboard after watchin' the bright sunny Rose Bowl on New Years Day with all the spectators in short sleeves and they were bundled up in jackets and the heater on high in their living room. They came to make money in the warm sunshine with dreams of getting rich in the movies. They complained of the cold and miserable places they were from... along with the crooked politics and graft. But, they also brought their attitudes about how they could help this poor backward, laid back area boom. And they applied what they knew, crooked politics and graft! If it was "native" Californian, it was lazy and bad... it needed replacing with their better ideas... and their better ideas were based in what they learned in places like Philadelphia, Jersey, New York, where union's rule and members do what they're told.
People who live in and are from those places are not inherently "bad"... but they, and humans all over the world, have poor memories... remembering the good and forgetting the bad. But, those two things are very often inseparable. Falls under the heading of "human nature!.
I could provide a couple of examples, but they're long, convoluted and complicated... and, frankly, it just ain't worth the effort. I put nearly 4 years of my career on one such case... and it's foundations were from back in the '60s... but has much to do with the BAD a few politicos and businesses brought with them from the East.