Posted on 11/04/2004 8:32:39 AM PST by NormsRevenge
At the outset of the campaign season, California Republicans held up the U.S. Senate contest as a marquee race for a newly energized, newly cohesive state GOP. Party leaders promised they would demonstrate that firing the Democratic governor last October was simply the start of an important revival for the long-sagging party.
The answer came with a giant thud Tuesday night, in the form of a crushing, 21-point victory for incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer and wins for Democrats in some key legislative and congressional races. Now Democrats and even some moderate Republicans say that the weak challenge against Boxer and the dearth of strong GOP candidates in the wings for future races settle the point.
The recall and GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory, they say, so far have failed to deliver the promised shift in party politics in the nation's most populous state.
Schwarzenegger has avoided casting himself in a partisan role, despite his efforts on behalf of some GOP legislative candidates. He didn't campaign publicly for former Secretary of State Bill Jones, Boxer's Republican rival, and made minimal appearances for President Bush - and then only outside the state.
"You saw it (election) night. Where was Arnold? He was not at the Republican headquarters, he was at Arnold's headquarters, which was, according to the TV, a bipartisan, nonpartisan headquarters," said outgoing state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
BITS
I think one of Karl Rov'e top priorities should be to fix the CalGOP. California was once a strong Republican state, but is now little more than a European state on the Pacific with a libertarian governor.
from Riverside County.
p.s. Bravo Kern County, I just saw the election numbers.
California only needed a 500,000 vote swing to go Republican on 11/2.
500,000 out of 10 million votes.
This can be done.
They're quoting John "SDS" Burton and Art "La Raza" Torres in an article about the CA GOP??!! What a crock. The Guvernator has absolutely schooled Burton and the rest of the Dems from Day One and given the moribund status of the GOP here 18 months ago, we're in decent shape. This ship will take a long time to turn, but we're working on it. Frankly, Bill Jones wasn't going to take down Boxer without out-spending her and that's a very tall order.
Arnold picks his battles carefully and then follows a plan to win. Political capital must be carefully spent and while I sincerely wish he'd taken on the stem cell proposition, he chose to focus on the Indian gaming propositions (they continue to be a very formidable opponent of his) and the "three-strikes" change (which would have released over 20,000 felons back into the community.) Add to that the recent gerrymandering, errr, realignment of districts (which the writer chose not to cite at all) and it's clear that it's gonna take a lot of time to build up solid statewide support for Republicans. Patience and persistence are required.
IMHO, Burton and Torres are whistling past the graveyard. By 2006, the CA GOP will be much, much stronger, especially with Dem leaders like them and Nancy "Nip/Tuck" Pelosi helping out.
NO.
Rove should keep his damn hands off of us. He's screwed with us already and that's enough.
I appreciate your optimism.
Let's see if it rubs off on the leadership of the CA GOP who has been derelict in their duty towards supporting it's own duly elected candidates in primaries the last few go-arounds (especially conservative ones).
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