Arnold Considered Party Switch

thedailybeast.com ^ | Feb. 23, 2009 | Joe Mathews

[Free ThinkerNY]

How bad did things get between Der Governator and his fellow Republicans? Schwarzenegger’s biographer, Joe Mathews, reports that he recently considered dropping out of the party altogether. It’s the latest blast in a long-running war.

A few months ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger and a few close associates discussed whether he should leave the Republican Party, according to two people familiar with the conversation. His friend Mike Bloomberg, the New York mayor, had become an independent. Maybe Schwarzenegger should, too. But the governor and his people quickly concluded that Californians already saw him as independent of the Republican Party. So what would be the point of a switch? (A spokesman for the governor declined comment.)

To people outside the state, Schwarzenegger’s recent battles with Republican legislators over a budget and his criticism of GOP governors and Congressmen for their opposition to President Obama’s stimulus package might sound jarring. Schwarzenegger once was “Conan the Republican” (the first President Bush’s nickname for him), a politician who declared in his 2004 convention speech, “I'm proud to belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Ronald Reagan and the party of George W. Bush.” Now he is on ABC News saying that “it doesn’t really mater if you’re a Republican or a Democrat.”

[Jim W N]

No, I'm glad I voted for the recall - as bad as Arnold has become, Grey Davis was worse and deserved to get canned.

I guess I hoped against hope that Arnold would be true to some kind of conservatism, but you and Savage and others I guess saw what I guess I didn't. Nevertheless, I feel good that I voted for McClintock instead of him. I know McClintock is the real deal, but why can't he get elected? I'm afraid he comes across a little too mousy, kind of the way Steve Forbes did in his presidential bids, although I think Forbes had the best ideas of any of the other candidate, the same way I feel about McClintock. I guess image counts as much as or more than substance these days - quiet, squeaky little voices and demeanor just don't seem to cut it in the media age of presidential (or gubernatorial) elections.

[calcowgirl]

IMO, McClintock didn't get elected for the same reason that Bill Simon and others didn't succeed: there is a group of RINOs with the CA GOP who work very hard to defeat them, undermining their campaigns, starving them of cash, and overtly working against them. Mousy? Squeaky voiced? That sure doesn't describe McClintock in person.

As to Gray Davis being worse than Arnold... I disagree. Arnold pushed for liberal programs and was able to pull the minimum number of Republican legislators along with him. Spending, borrowing, land grabs, envirocraziness. You name it. Davis would never have been able to do that.

[Jim W N]

That sure doesn't describe McClintock in person.

Maybe not, but he, like Forbes and to some degree Jack Kemp, come across like accountants (great ideas and answers - but unable to project through the TV screen to the audience out there)...

[Impy]

Please, do it Conan.

He’s a lying scumbag, or else (real possibility maybe) he’s too stupid to know he’s a socialist, his boilerplate speech is anti-socialist.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT