This is the most stereotypical thing I could make
...And Forty-Nine Lesser States
1965-1973: Nelson Rockefeller (Republican)
1973-1981: Robert Kennedy (Democratic)
1981-1989: Jack Kemp (Republican)
1989-1993: Rudy Giuliani (Democratic)
1993-2001: James A. Baker III (Republican)
2001-2005: Ann Richards (Democratic)
2005-2009: Kay Bailey Hutchison (Republican)
2009-2013: William McRaven (Democratic)
2013-2017: Dan Patrick (Republican)
2017-2021: Julián Castro (Democratic)
2021-: Heidi Nelson (Republican)
Why has California, the nation's largest state since 1963, failed to exercise its voice in the Presidency? Perhaps because of its runners-up. The 'New York ideology' of strong support for civil rights backstopped by an ardent pursuit of 'law and order' and a measured effort to bow to capital without mooning labor defined the late '60s and '70s, but began to fray in the 1980s as inflation rose, protests against police violence spread across the nation, and headlines about America's support of 'dirty wars' in Latin America and Africa dotted the headlines. Kemp tore at the old order by fighting for supply-side economics; Giuliani did it by choosing his side in the culture wars, and in doing so tearing his party apart.
Despite Kemp's SoCal childhood, he did not open any doors for the west coast. Instead, his mantle was taken up by his more pragmatic House counterpart, Jim Baker, who summarily handed the mantle over to one of the few Democrats popular on both sides of the party. The rising power of the Christian Right meant that her Republican opposite number could never do the same, but neither could the military chieftain who succeeded Richards, nor the shock jock who defeated Governor Bush for the Republican nomination. After at least five one-term Presidents in a row, it has become common to say that the nature of modern Texas politics means that its leaders can never make the transition to the national level easily. But with hurricane-battered Florida losing ground to Texas last Census, who can compete?