As a former Oregonian who never planned to move to the Golden State, I'm sad to say I've experienced this phenomenon from both sides of the state line.
While rudeness is rarely excusable, and generalizations are usually unfair, I can understand how people in other states love/loathe California. It can be very challenging to folks in small towns when a sudden influx of money and early retirees from another state push housing and land prices up (making it hard for your kids to buy a home where they were raised), or when the area you loved for its "rural" character becomes strip-malled because of the machinations of a developer who cut their chops in LA county. From the CA side, it's easy to have pride and preference for your home state come across as haughtiness. It's hard to make room in your heart for the things that threaten your lifestyle, and its easier to find a scapegoat than seek common ground and a path forward.
ST -- in statistics there's a saying, "the larger the sample, the better the inference." Maybe spending some time with Californians that you don't work with will broaden your view of the state. It worked for me when I spent time in London -- I no longer believe that all Brits are humorless snobs who eat terrible food.
As for the credit crisis, here's one Californian who's holding her breath, wanting our state workers to get paid so they can put food on the table. Isn't that what this comes down to? Why would I wish bounced paychecks and hard times on my neighbors?