Posted on 11/30/2005 6:12:08 PM PST by Amerigomag
The appointment of Susan Kennedy as Chief of Staff to the Governor is a betrayal of the hard working activists that supported the Governor during the recent special election. Kennedy has a track record as an active partisan Democrat that has worked contrary to Republican candidates and beliefs.
Those of us who supported the recall of Gray Davis now find one of his top operatives, Susan Kennedy as the leader of Schwarzenegger staff. Not only did she work for Davis, but Kennedy is plagued by her involvement in the Oracle scandal.
This is a dangerous false start for the Governor, not a fresh start.
The California Republican Assembly Board of Directors will be voting on a resolution calling for the California Republican Party's withdrawal of their pre-primary endorsement of the Governor.
I should not be stuned by Arnold's latest stunt but I am!
I plan on really getting out there for McC. down here to make sure everything is done to get him elected Lt. Gov. It's the only thing I can think of at this point to counter Arnold!
Must really suck to be an action-hero movie-star empty-suit loving RINO.
Somehow I doubt Tom McClintock agrees.
As in the last election, I'm taking my cue from him.
As they say, if you elect a RINO, you'd better expect a heap of crap.
Apparently they (conservatives) did turn out and did support Prop 73 and Prop 75 but conservatives make up only about 15% of California's electorate.
Both measures lost by narrow margins, not on their merits, but because an extremely unpopular governor got involved. Had that governor ignored these two measures they probably would have passed by narrow margins even in the face of considerable, organized opposition.
No, of course he doesn't. Nor should he, because he's an elected official who aspires to higher office. We need Republican leaders in this state, but real ones who will do the grunt work necessary to rebuild the party from the ground up. If McClintock will be such a leader, I'll gladly support him. I just need to be convinced.
But again, he's running for Lt. Governor. Why, I have no idea. Maybe he thinks if he can win, it will be a platform from which he can run for governor down the line. But Lt. Gov. is a useless elective office. If he wins and uses his higher profile to help rebuild the cAGOP, then he'll be doing something worthwhile. If all he does is sit around marking time until he can run for governor, then it's pointless. I want to know what his goals are should he win the office.
"But I do like the idea from the article of making Tom McClintock the GOP candidate for governor next year... "
I take it that also means you like the idea of making any Democrat the Governor next year ?
I understand your point, but if the Dems take over, we may never have another chance. Remember, the Dems ruled the US House for some 40 years. I don't think CA can take that at this point.
If they did take over, you can just get ready for huge tax increases, and socialized medicine, which may well kill us -- seriously. I certainly don't want that. Arnold has been holding the line on taxes despite Dem pressures, and I expect he will continue to do so.
FO: "I think Arnold learned the wrong lesson from the special election defeat."
BHAPH: "He learned that California conservatives don't support him, even when he proposes what they allegedly want. So he's building a political base that doesn't include conservatives, who might support him in the conservatives' stead."
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Pale Horse, I think you hit the nail on the head.
That's just it. The Dims already have taken over. They have run the state legislature pratically forever. Arnold is a Republican in the same way Lincoln Chafee is a Republican, which is to say barely. Arnold is surrounded mostly by Lib-Dims.
The only thing Arnold does is give the Dims cover because he's a nominal Republican. They escape blame for the state's problems, while Republicans get the blame they don't deserve.
Just like Rush has been saying about the national Dims, I want the state Dims to come out of hiding and show their true colors. I want full sunshine on them, with no pseudo-Republican to hide behind.
It was reported that turnout in conservative areas was low.
There were a number of threads here and those comments were made. Either you weren't on the threads, or you are lying. You can it, dear.
"Arnold is a quitter, a loser, and a girly man. "
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HE isn't. The voters who voted against his reform propositions are the ones deserving of the above labels.
Arnold staked his political future on passing important reform propositions, but he needed to support of the CA people, who bailed on him.
By whom? What's a conservative area?
May I suggest that there have been many sucked into these myths.
First, to the benefit of liberals, the MSM has managed to equate conservative with Republican. Nothing could be further from the truth as is obviated by the shenanigans in the California executive yesterday and the replies on this forum defending an obvious liberal simply because he is a registered Republican.
Second; no one, no entity or no institution, recognizes political philosophy as a electoral subdivision. Party registration is tracked and some exit polls provide gender breakdowns but none track liberal/moderate/conservative profiles. There were anecdotal* reports that turnouts were lower in Republican areas but the reports are unreliable and even if reasonably accurate they still don't track philosophy, only party registration.
Third, logic would contradict those reports. If, based on the 2003 election, conservatives are less than 15% of the electorate and all conservatives were registered in the Republican Party they would still represent less than 40% of that party's registered voters. Schwarzenegger was elected because conservatives represent such a small percentage of California's electorate. Had all registered Republicans been conservative, Davis would still be governor and McClintock would have been the plurality winner in the moot results on the second question on the ballot.
*based on Schwrazeneggre's support in 2003.
I don't agree with this kind of thinking -- at all. Invitations to chaos are not solutions. When you try to "teach someone a lesson" you're never going to get them to "fish or cut bait" as you put it, they're just going to dump you and your opinions. Leaders don't have the luxury of walking away.
If Arnold was a leader, I might agree with you. However, he is not a leader, but a weak individual who is all flash, but who doesn't really know what he is politically. And that's a charitable assessment.
I normally stick with Republican politicians through thick and thin. But I do ask one thing in return, which is for them to be as loyal to me as I am to them. There has to be some bottom line politicians cannot cross without losing my support. For many people in the grass roots, their bottom line centers on issues like abortion, gun rights, the border, etc. Mine centers on loyalty to those in the grass roots, like me, who volunteer to do the thankless grunt work on campaigns: walk precincts, stuff envelopes, register voters, man the local precinct HQ, answer phones, make precinct calls, and so on.
When a politican stabs those people in the back -- as Arnold has done by surrounding himself with Leftists after marketing himself as a Republican -- then they lose my support.
Specifically as regards Arnold, I maintined then and still do today that the recall was a huge mistake. It accomplished nothing other than taking the heat off our Marxist legislature and Dems Party in this state.
There are times when a strategic retreat is the smartest thing to do. This is one of those times.
Flash is Paris Hilton. Schwarzenegger is the elected governor of the state of California. I think there's a difference.
No! Really? Talk about stating the obvious.
I didn't use the term flash in the celebrity sense, but rather in the sense of being all image and having no substance behind the image.
They'll be riding the war wagon at the next general election, but they can't hand Schwarzenegger a win by being purely obstructionist in the meantime. So everybody's got to make nice and move into a mode where things can get done. We'll see.
You don't sound like you live in California. I do.
As a Californian, I agree there may be some truth to your statement I quoted above. However, he sure can't win if mainstream Republicans like me don't support him.
I have a unique perspective that's certainly uncommon here on FR. I was against the recall. Thought it was a big mistake then and still do now. However, when it made the ballot and Schwarzenegger jumped in, I decided to vote for Arnold because I didn't want to see Cruz Bustamante become governor. (Thinking back on it, I shouldn't have voted in the recall at all. Almost didn't, but my respect for the right to vote is too strong.)
So now we're stuck with a nominally Republican governor who just put a Leftist in a position of real power within his administration. Maybe you're right. Maybe that will seal the deal for Arnold among enough Dem voters that he might win reelection. However, he's lost me and probably large numbers of people like me.
I don't vote for Democrats, Greens or any Leftists. I don't vote for Leftists even if they happen to nominally call themselves Republicans. When we vote for a state's (and the nation's) chief executive, we are not voting just for the individual candidate, but also for the type of people we expect to be appointed in the executive branch, to judgeships, commissions, boards, etc.
I'm no hard-right ultra conservative, but am a life-long loyal Republican. I'm not a single-issue voter. The big tent concept doesn't scare me, and I understand that politics is about building winning coalitions. But, as I said in an earlier post, the one thing I expect in return for my loyalty and willingness to do grunt work on campaigns is for Republican politicians to be loyal to us party grunts in return.
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