Posted on 11/10/2005 12:08:31 AM PST by goldstategop
Team Arnold lost his Big Four measures -- Propositions 74 through 77 -- on the California ballot Tuesday because this band of political hired guns deserved to lose. They ran a cynical campaign.
After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's big recall-election win in 2003 and his successful fight in 2004 against some well-funded ballot measures -- like the two Big Casino measures and a three-strikes makeover that rode high in the polls until he opposed it -- the team figured he could sell anything to the California voter. So they didn't do a careful job of lining up initiatives with curb appeal to voters. They campaigned as if they could skate by on his Hollywood looks.
Their biggest mistake was to use the initiative process as a substitute for governing. For all his tough talk, Schwarzenegger has failed to pass a budget that spends less or even as much as the state takes in. That is a failing. Worse, the muscle man asked the voters to solve the budget problem by passing his "Live Within Our Means" measure, Proposition 76. It could have been dubbed: Stop Me Before I Spend Too Much.
Democrat Roger Salazar of the "No" camp got it right when he noted that California voters felt "no sense of urgency" and hence saw no reason for the special election. They wanted Schwarzenegger to govern, not to make them do homework.
I don't understand why Team Arnold was so blase about the disinformation thrown against it. Why didn't they hustle to set the record straight? Take the charge that Schwarzenegger took away $2 billion from public schools, when state school spending increased by $3 billion this year.
I'm not saying members of Team Arnold didn't put in long hours on the campaign trail. I am saying that they didn't have one vital ingredient: true belief in the cause.
If they believed that the state really needed these measures to right itself, that conviction was never communicated to the voters.
Say what you will about the "no" forces, but you must admit this: They believed in what they were doing, and never left anyone in doubt on that score.
The governor's team, in contrast, believed they were the most clever minds in the room. It didn't help that the California electorate wants the impossible -- more government without paying for it -- and the public-employee unions were ready to tell them they could have it. They could wail about how Schwarzenegger was not spending promised money on schools without having to discuss who would pay for higher school funding.
In August, the California Teachers Association dropped plans to place a measure on the June 2006 ballot that would have raised business property taxes. This robbed Team Arnold of the opportunity to explain that their opponents want a big, broad tax increase.
Salazar sees the November sweep as an anti-Arnold sweep, and I think he is right. Bob Stern of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles believes voters should have looked at the merits of each measure and then voted up or down, but, "On the other hand, if you don't like Schwarzenegger, if you want to bring him down a peg, then it made perfect sense to vote 'no.'"
Sure. It made perfect sense -- if you take away the context. In 2002, voters re-elected Gray Davis. In 2003, they recalled Davis and elected Schwarzenegger because he promised to change Sacramento and revoke the vehicle-license fee reinstated by the Davis administration. Two years later, California voters rejected Schwarzenegger because he tried to curb state spending.
It is worth noting that Schwarzenegger began sinking in the polls, in part, because he started doing what it takes to balance the state budget without raising taxes. (Yeah, I know, the slide also followed Schwarzenegger's big-mouth retort to nurses that he had kicked their butts, and that allowed them to kick his butt.)
Now, all Sacramento knows that next year's budget will include a $4 billion shortfall. But don't expect both parties to come together to fix it. As Stern noted: "My concern is that the Democrats will not want to give him anything for next year because they want a Democratic governor in 2007. If he looks like a leader, he may be re-elected."
Hmmmm. Voters have great things to look forward to next year: Polls show they hate the Legislature more than the governor, but now they've weakened the governor. The state still has a structural budget deficit, and the voters have defeated measures that could have fixed the budget without raising taxes. That's really sticking it to Schwarzenegger.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
And they campaigned with what can only be deemed as disdain for Prop 73. Hell, all of der Grubenator's fliers made only passing mention of it.
Thanks for nothing, Arnold.
He fought a reasonable fight with what he had to use and I respect his effort.
There is no Arnold problem here, it is a government employee union problem spending tons of money others didn't have to fight back with.
Oh, bah. Arnold told us when he was elected that he was going to take issues to the people. So he took these issues to the people, and the people said no. Well, having a bone-headed electorate is nothing new, particularly here. It's hardly the end of the world or of California, nor the end of Arnold as governor. We've had a lot worse governors than Arnold, and we probably will again, but he's what we have now, and if we expect him to do the reforms we elected him to do, we have to give him the tools. And the time. California's been a mess for years, and we can't reasonably expect it all to be fixed in a year or two; this isn't a half-hour sitcom with a nice tidy resolution before the last commercial. And Arnold may be learning on the job, but at least he's trying, which is a whole lot more than can be said for Grey-out Davis who was spending all his time cutting sweetheart deals with his special interest groups in order to line his war chest in anticipation of a run for the presidency, and wouldn't that have been a mess. So, enough with the hand-wringing and navel-gazing. End of rant.
Ditto to everything you said. I'm sick and tired of this "oh woe is us; it's the END TIMES!" cr*p from Republicans who are too ready to chuck it in just because we've had a setback. Arnold picked a fight with the unions who have a stranglehold on California's politics and finances, and ran them to the poorhouse. They didn't get anything they didn't have before, and they're financially a lot worse.
They are now very vulnerable for 2006 for similar initiatives to ruin them and they can't afford the same level of fight. Plus next time in a regular election, the vast amount of voters will not be all from a union employees because of a tiny turn out.
They are ripe to be laid out cold IMO. Plus if they have to spend hundreds of millions on defense, then they can't be as busy trying to shove a governor Bustamante down our throats.
I like to see the unions spending all their money and even borrowing against their future. Works for me. We have to do that as a regular thing against them.
I didn't support him at first but he's been in the trenches and the rest of you so called GOP in Cal have been AWOL !
<< Give Arnold the credit that he fought a fight against this machine.
They were so afraid of him they spent tens of millions on ruining the governor's image before even starting on the propositions and they are now broke and owe money.
We do this again in 2006 and we more than likely will win, because no way they can raise the same cash, and I'd rather they spend their millions on defense rather than trying to push a Bustamante down our throat.
Arnold had guts and did the job he was expected to do.
Anyone who are going to disrespect him after is effort to help us are walking piles of human debris and part of the problem with California, not the solution.
He fought a reasonable fight with what he had to use and I respect his effort.
There is no Arnold problem here, it is a government employee union problem spending tons of money others didn't have to fight back with. >>
Amen.
Thank you.
And bring on 2006!
I for one am suited up, willing and waiting.
You nailed it on the head. Especially prop 75 was a longshot, but at least it was close, and to even see on the ballot was stupendous. I have to belong to an onion to have my job (I could choose to not belong, but then the onion still gets to take the same amount of money from my paycheck anyway), and the stinky onion leaders make me sick.
This fight is just getting started...
Gotta luv it!
Give Arnold the credit that he fought a fight against this machine. They were so afraid of him they spent tens of millions on ruining the governor's image before even starting on the propositions and they are now broke and owe money.
And what we learned from this was that Arnold took a page from Reagan and forced his enemies into bankrupcy, like when Reagan bankrupted the USSR.
This may a victory for the Republicans in the long run.
In Ohio he crawled in bed with them. Monday night we received a recorded phone call from him urging us to vote "Yes" on our "Reform Ohio" issues.
These were rat sponsered "reforms" that among other bad things, would have REALLY helped the unions buy politicians. Thankfully, those issues went down to defeat.
I hope these initiatives go back on the ballot in 2006.
Ahnold was not ready for prime time...a fact pointed out by numerous posters to this site when he was running in the primary. He did not have the political background to be governor or he wouldn't have unified his opposition in such a clumsy way. But, hey, CA "Republicans" didn't care because they just wanted a "winner." That's not what anyone is calling Ahnold today.
The sad part is that this round was entirely winnable. Turnout on both sides was down, however, the 1.3 million rat advantage in CA and expected union turnout was the death knell. Also, the MSM was running "voters p*ssed at special election" and "Arnold's propositions doomed" articles based on Field polls. Why vote when it won't matter is the mindset of so many. Especially when there was nothing else on the ballot to draw them there--except the parental notification proposition which really surprised me. In any event, I do hope we get a do over...
Thnaks for posting .. Lots of editorial and opinion pieces out today about the special elections.
I completely agree.
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