Free Republic

This site translates this La Opinion article about an (English-language) interview with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: It was an error to support Proposal 187, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted yesterday during a meeting with the editorial board of La Opinion. The state’s chief executive expressed his positions on immigration, public education, the healthcare crisis, and his vision for California, within the context of his campaign and its engagement of the state's Latin community with a view to his re-election in November. There's audio at the second link, with more to follow tomorrow. I have three statements to make: 1. As before,...

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is leaving open the possibility of backing Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein for re-election, despite an impassioned appeal from her GOP rival, former state Sen. Dick Mountjoy. Schwarzenegger surprised his Republican backers shortly after the primary when he said he would have no problem endorsing a Democrat for office this year. "If I like someone, absolutely,'' he said at a June 8 campaign stop in Antioch. While the governor didn't name any names, Steve Schmidt, his campaign manager, wasn't quite so circumspect. "Like most Californians, (Schwarzenegger) thinks Dianne Feinstein is a great senator,'' Schmidt said. While Schwarzenegger...

I want to begin by applauding the administration for finally focusing the government’s attention on our long-neglected public works. I have often lamented the climacteric that befell our state in 1974 with the election of Gov. Jerry Brown and the introduction of a radical and retrograde ideology. He called it his “era of limits.” It was punctuated with such new age nonsense as the mantra “small is beautiful.” I think it can best be described as the naïve notion that if we stopped building things, people would stop coming. So we stopped building highways; we stopped building water projects; we...

A grassroots effort has been launched here in California to recall Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger's election to governor is the result of another recall. In 2003, Californians recalled Governor Grey Davis. We have local reaction to this effort to oust Schwarzenegger from office. The group calls itself “Save California Now” and their website is recall2006.com. They say they have 10,000 volunteers signed up, all with the same goal in mind: recall Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger before this year's November election. But locals aren't so sure a recall is feasible.

A recent poll shows the born-again "moderate" Republican governor has gained back some popularity, especially in the Bay Area, and is now in a dead heat with Democratic competitors. "Our survey demonstrates that Schwarzenegger's retreat from the more conservative rhetoric and agenda he brandished during the latter part of 2005 has paid off among middle-of-the road voters," said Melinda Jackson, director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University. The governor's job performance rating among voters in a Democrat-leaning state has climbed from 36 percent positive and 53 percent negative in September, to 40 percent positive...

Arnold Schwarzenegger's selection of archliberal Susan Kennedy, a former Cabinet secretary to Gray Davis, as his new chief of staff "is the last straw for a lot of grassroots California Republicans," says California Republican Assembly president Mike Spence to TAS. Spence describes the appointment as the equivalent of "George Bush appointing Howard Dean to be his chief of staff." Even the jaw of George Skelton (the Los Angeles Times columnist who has spent much of his career telling the California GOP to move left) dropped after the appointment of Kennedy, who is one of the state's leading abortion proponents, a...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named Carol A. Corrigan to the California Supreme Court this morning, replacing an ideological conservative with a judicial moderate. Corrigan is a former prosecutor, former Democrat and self-described centrist who will replace the notable conservative Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who left last summer to take up a presidential appointment to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. "She's a brilliant jurist," Schwarzenegger said today, referring to Corrigan as "classy," "experienced" and "knowledgeable." Corrigan, 57, becomes the sixth Republican on the court. One justice is a Democrat. Corrigan's appointment leaves no African Americans on the state's...