Posted on 02/11/2006 9:05:45 AM PST by Amerigomag
California Republican leaders are struggling behind the scenes to quell an insurrection by angry conservatives who want to strip Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of the state party endorsement if he doesn't drop his Democratic chief of staff, Susan Kennedy. The conservative California Republican Assembly's demand for a vote on its "Susan Kennedy Resolution" has tossed a firebomb into efforts to shape the party's agenda at its Feb. 24-26 winter convention in San Jose.
On Dec. 15, two weeks after Schwarzenegger hired Kennedy, Sundheim said he and other Republican leaders emerged satisfied after meeting with the governor. He said the GOP leaders - fearful of sharing political strategy with a longtime Democratic Party operative - were promised access to Schwarzenegger through campaign manager Steve Schmidt, a Republican and former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
But protests from Republican conservatives erupted anew with revelations that Kennedy received $25,000 in December for Schwarzenegger campaign work and that - on top of her state salary and official duties - she will be receiving $7,500 a month to meet with political donors and work on his re-election effort.
State GOP President Duf Sundheim said this week that the "vast majority of people don't want to revoke the endorsement" of the governor. State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, has penned a letter urging Republican convention delegates to "join me by rejecting any misguided effort to divide us by rescinding the party's endorsement of our governor.
Two leading conservative activists, former state Republican Party Chairman Michael Schroeder and California Republican Assembly President Mike Spence, indicated in interviews that they would back away from the Kennedy resolution if party leaders allow convention votes on four other measures critical of Schwarzenegger's legislative agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Sundheim and McClintock feverishly try to hold the big tent together and conservatives threatening to refuse to participate in a shame.
I pitty McClintock. McClintock reviles almost every Wilsonegger policy with every fiber in his conservative soul but the CRP has got him by the cahonjes and he has got to screech.
Tom McClintock has been a disappointment to conservatives everywhere. His public siding with GovScwarzy and his support for Ahnold's reelection is quite baffling. I'd like to attribute his behavior to state politics, but it reminds me more of soap opera antics then serious backdoor dealings.
I'm not quite ready to toss the TomBot doll on the junk heap yet.
This is a New Age in California politics.
To battle the scoundrels that have hijacked a party and ignore its long history, its platform and principles, requires being willing to go behind the enemies lines.
He certainly is not in the class of the Vichy Republicans.
jmo
Not for me for two reasons:
1) While McClintock has a decent war chest amassed with one of the lowest $/donor ratios demonstrating widespread support among the average voters instead of select few special interests, he lacks both the statewide organization and total dollars to win statewide. He needs the CRP organization and the New Majority money.
2) The CRP has extracted reciprocation from McClintock and is now using it not only to support the Wilsonegger gang, their primary motive, but also to drive a wedge between McClintock and his conservative base to assure his defeat in November, an additional benefit for the CRP which is working actively to drive conservatives out of their power structure.
I was also surprised that McClintock wrote the letter to delegates in view of the backlash he received from conservatives over his disingenuous radio promotions supporting Prop 76. What tempered my amazement was that the letter was a private communication rather than a public utterance. None the less, McClintock should have realized that the letter would ultimately be publicly outed and used against him by both his ideological opponents in the liberal press and within his own party.
Many political pundits gave McClintock a chance in November because he had carved out a niche as the only principled voice of conscience across a wide landscape of partisan rhetoric. If McClintock looses in November he has only himself to blame by hitching his star to the perceived corruption and business as usual policies of the CRP/Wilsonegger gang.
"The governor had a free ride from conservatives for two years when he could take them for granted and not worry about what he did. Now that free ride is over. Conservatives have finally had it with him."
I can't wait until this guy comes to campaign here for the Gub. when I saw chew toys...
Also, keep in mind, he has not been laudatory of the massive bonds looming on the state's horizon and has not been afraid to speak out on a number of issues.
He is supportive of the latest bonds proposal to the extent that the money is spent for real tangible projects and not fluff as much has been in the past.
The CRP bypassed the principled complaints of McClintock and other legislative conservatives by negotiating directly with the legislatures majority leadership. The condemnation by conservatives in the legislature during the Duekmejian and Wilson administrations were simply ignored by the CRP, just as they have been during the Wilsonegger gang's short reign of terror.
When term limits and McClintock's drive for more power forced him to go state wide the tables were turned. Now McClintock needed the party and the CRP struck back pulling the rug out from beneath his efforts with lackluster financial and public support.
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