Elizabeth Emken

Part of the problem you have is that you don't have a dialogue between elected officials and their constituents. They've built these barricades, these barriers around themselves and tried to avoid interaction with their constituents.

I consider myself almost a Californian at this point, because I've been here long enough. Obviously, when I first came to the land of blond-haired, blue-eyed surfer types, I was the sardonic, sarcastic, liquor-swilling, chain-smoking, dark-haired, dark-eyed guy from New York.