Posted on 11/09/2005 2:35:12 PM PST by goldstategop
There is no such thing as a fusion candidate, no such thing a bipartisan campaign or non-partisan issue, and come election night, there are just two parties, one at the GOP HQ and one at the Dem HQ. There's a winner's party and a losers' party. Last night you were speaking to the losers' party.
I didn't go. Why bother? The polls had shown for a few days that only Prop 75 had a chance (the measure to stop public employee unions from deducting political dues from their members' paychecks without prior authroization), and besides, most of your people aren't my friends and colleagues from nearly 30 years around California politics. They are fine folks, to be sure, and I have run into them in many of the seminar rooms of the state's hundred universities, but you have now run into the reality of California politics. The folks who don't care much about politics, well, they reallydon't care much about politics. They certainly can't get you wins on their own. There aren't enough of them.
As Nixon often remarked: You can't win with just the conservatives, but you cannot win without them.
Your team told you that if you put enough bait on the hook, you'd get the troops to marching. While they no doubt dutifully voted for your four initiatives --and Prop 73, which would have required notice to parents when their teen daughter sought an abortion-- they most certainly did not march.
And they aren't even that upset this morning. They didn't lose a thing --you lost. Perhaps you will spend the next couple of weeks figuring out that you have exactly zero high profile GOP conservatives close to you, and that there are a whole bunch of lefties running around your offices busy advancing agendas with which the right cannot agree.
Name the conservative icon upon whom you depend and to whom you go for solid advice? There isn't one.
Name the single conservative cause with which you are associated. Spending restraint? Private property rights? Limits on abortion? Second Amendment advocacy? Judges?
You have picked fights with all the right people, but over what? Redistricting that might have cost the GOP crucial seats in D.C., a spending cap that wasn't, teacher tenure tweaks? Again, mixing it up with the public employee unions was fine, but off-year elections aren't exactly gladiator time, especially when the budget got passed because your advisors didn't want a show-down in the summer.
Which is not to say that you won't win in 2006. You probably will, because both of the would-be Democratic candidates are stiffs with big bucks, and California remembers Gray Davis. Sending all Democrats to Sacramento is a recipe for power shoirtages and same sex marriage, abandonment of the public schools to failure and endless traffic congestion. A Republican governor is sort of like a fail-safe on the doomsday machine of California government. This helps you, a lot.
Plus, charisma and the technique that will get a grin and a yes vote from relentlessly bored voters who care not a whit about anything are still much in demand.
(But you must know that Rob Reiner could change things. Not Beatty --who looks more and more like Nixon every day-- but Reiner. Reiner's smart, very funny, very savvy. That would be a debate for the ages. They could sell tickets. No bobo dolls named Arianna, but a real contest.)
So you've got to get serious about winning in '06, and that means getting serious about the GOP base. Some suggestions:
1. Clear out the left from inside the "horseshoe," the Governor's offices inside the Capitol.
2. Bring in some senior advisors with pedigrees on the right and listen to them. Ask Bruce Herchensohn to spend a couple of days a week in the offices, as a "minsiter without portfolio." You don't have to do a thing he recommends, but there is no more respected figure on the California right than Bruce. Associated with Bruce, but also with Reagan, is Ken Khachigian. Ask Ken to take up a post somewhere on the battlements. And raid Hoover --get Robinson to convene a three day idea-fest with the folks who haven't spent their lives trading quarter percents with Sacramento's lobbyists.
3. The press operation. Someone has persuaded you that the political press is like the Hollywood gang. But they can't be wooed that way. They can't be wooed at all. And they don't matter. They don't create the buzz anymore than they do majorities. Retool and figure out new media.
4. The 2006 slate. There are big, big problems forming here, and the downticket matters as much as the top. The initiatives in the pipeline haven't been thought through. Get a marriage amendment qualified, period. And take another swing at the unions as well. Develop and qualify an initiative that protects churches/synagogues/other worship facilities from the local planning departments. Develop and qualify an anti-Kelo intiative.
Don't just say "I'll be back." Live it.
5. Finally, don't blow the California Supreme Court appointment or the rest of your judicial appointments. I sighed when I saw the latest round of your court picks in southern California. Look. If you are going to appoint Democrats to the bench --even one--don't ask me to get excited about your re-election. I know you can't do much with a legislature that makes the Swedish parliament look conservative, but you own your judicial picks. Ask around. There are great Republican lawyers who would make great Republican judges.
On the California Supreme Court vacancy, understand that this is the biggest decision you will make between now and next November. If you blow it, it will be a sure fire message to the base that the candle isn't worth the fight. If Lockyer is against a nominee, that's a great sign of that nominee's qualifications.
I don't doubt that you are more enrgized than ever and ready for a knock-down 12 months. Your spokeman on the tube last night wasn't. (Enough of "rolling up our sleeves" already!)
It is going to be sweet to win re-election, especuially after all the doom-sayers on this Wednesday morning, but you can't get there with the tactics or the team of 2005.
I know you made some lousy movies, and you must have known at some point that the team you had on the set just wasn't cutting it.
Have you got that feeling now? You should. You're the producer and the director. Change the script. Change everything. Or go back tp making movies in 15 months
Amen. And Hewitt, no matter how he postures now, has proved he is no conservative.
He's a RINO, what do you care?
If he doesn't, this November is going to seem like a bad dream if the Dems end up nominating Rob Reiner.
Well, since most stayed home this time around, they got what they asked for, including the initiative that would have effectively downsized the government and curbed the outrageous spending going on in Sacramento at the State House which was defeated. If Rob Reiner gets nominated, I won't be surprised. California is a lost cause for Conservatism.
Therein lies the problem with the pragmatic partisans who run the CAGOP. Their goal is victory, at all costs. They see little gain and no direct reward in the daily conflicts along the path to their destination. They just see the destination. Political victory.
Sea changes in societies aren't accomplished overnight. Profound changes occur from the cumulative effect of many small battles. As an example, had the governor of California used his veto power repeatedly to strengthen the hand of his own party in the legislature and shine a public light on the status quo in his veto message, his image would be much different. Instead he went along to get along to accomplish the greater good in the longer run and ended up just another RINO who couldn't lead a pair of canaries to the open door on their cage.
I wasn't going to read this post by Hugh, because I thought he'd blown his credibility by championing Harriet Miers.
Then I read it. Hugh is right on all points. Excellent advice for the Governator.
NJ and VA didn't change parties, neither did CA for that matter. What mattered most were the ballot issues that most people in CA should have gone and voted for instead of staying home and blaming the Governor for the mess they find themselves in.
More than you, I can say this much.
"Conservatives have been tolerant of betrayal by the moderates and RINOs long enough. We refuse to be the African-Americans of the Republican party, i.e. courted at election time but ignored for the other 3 and a half years of the cycle."
AMEN, brother BUMP!
More proof that Kalifornia is the land of nuts, nuts and more nuts.
My guess is because he knew that the alternative was much, much worse.
(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.")
It ain't gonna work. The kool-aid has damaged Hugh's brain...what little brain he has.
So why do it? Just for show, Hugh? Just what we need--another Hollywood script with no core principle. Who are you shilling for today, Hugh? [HH has no credibility in my book, although he seems to be singing almost the right tune]
Riiiight. That Tom McClintock sure is a RINO. (sarcasm)
Re: your question about McClintock's negatives ...
He is one hell of a good man, genuinely bright and of outstanding principle and character. He has also dedicated his life to politics, despite the GOP's structural minority position in California. He's not like these rich guys (think Bill Simon, Michael Huffington, Pete Coors, Steve Forbes) who try to start out at the top. He has chosen government -- the territory of the enemy -- as his life's arena. For all this, he deserves and has immense respect from the base in this state.
Tom's negatives? He's not a good politician in the personal sense. He doesn't always know what to say or how to say it. He has an awkwardness and an overly serious demeanor. He had the highest personal approval rating of all candidates, including Arnold, in the recall election.
My guess is that voters appreciated the honesty of his message, in that climate. But had he instead of Arnold been the Republican nominee, the recall might have failed. In other words, he could have beaten the Rat lieutenant governor Cruz Bustmante (who was the Dems' pathetic replacement candidate), but he might not have beaten Davis.
Tom is younger than he looks and younger than Arnold. He also has a great relationship with the talk-radio hosts. Assuming he stays in the game, he can be around for a long time.
His electability to the governorship would depend on extraordinarily favorable circumstances for the GOP. But hey, that's possible one of these days. The Rats' system cannot continue as it has, because it is on the verge of plunging this state into chaos. If people are hit hard enough, they might wake up and elect even Tom.
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