The Los Angeles Times has the column A telling GOP defection by columnist George Skelton.  The subheadline is “Loss of Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher should be a wake-up call for party in California.”

While this is about California politics, it might be a spreading phenomenon.

Fletcher says his frustration is aggravated by the war experience.

“Any combat veteran wrestles with a sense of survivor’s guilt,” he told me. “I wasn’t any better a Marine than those who didn’t survive. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That gives me a real sense of obligation.

“You shouldn’t waste your life. It is a gift, and you ought to do something of meaning…. I just have a lower threshold for some of the pettiness and silliness that goes on. If the [Democratic] speaker of the Assembly has a good idea, we shouldn’t oppose it just because somebody says he’s the enemy.

“I know what an enemy is. I’ve watched people die. I’ve been to car bombing scenes and seen little sandals where children were killed. I don’t see the other side [in politics] as the enemy just because we disagree.”

Also, he continues, “in the Marine Corps, if you have a mission, you just have to get it done. When I came into elected office, I had that same sense of obligation. I feel that’s missing in the current environment. It’s good to have some on the ideological extreme. But we need more people who want to be pragmatic and figure how to make it work.”

The tipping point for Fletcher came last fall when he negotiated with Gov. Brown to eliminate a corporate tax break that rewarded companies for not building facilities and creating jobs in California. The $1-billion savings would have provided tax breaks for small businesses, buyers of manufacturing equipment and income tax payers who don’t itemize. Republicans blocked the bill.

GOP colleagues told Fletcher, he says, that “‘it may be the right thing to do, but we can’t let Jerry Brown get a win,’ which is just dumb.”

There comes a time when good politicians figure out what it is they really want to accomplish.  They realize that political games just for the sake of the game is not why they got into politics.