Kennedy Republicans (Closet Democrat Arnold Schwarzenegger has kicked the door wide open)

The American Prowler ^ | 12/2/2005 | George Neumayr

[nickcarraway]

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 high-profile lesbian activist, and a former aide to many prominent California Democrats. "There simply is no precedent -- at least in any current political lifetime -- for what Schwarzenegger did Wednesday. Appoint a hard-core, dedicated soldier from the enemy camp as his chief of staff. Not just an 'advisor' or 'counselor' -- but his No. 1, his alter ego," Skelton wrote.

The door behind which Schwarzenegger kept his de facto Democratic ideology has long been ajar and visible, but now he has kicked it wide open, and not even craven, win-at-all-costs Republicans can ignore it. Susan Kennedy herself blurted out the basic truth about Schwarzenegger: "I think a moderate Democrat and a moderate Republican -- there is not a lot of light between us."

This point had been made during the Recall, but California GOP officials, relying on the usual "Big Tent" song-and-dance and shallow pragmatic arguments, cast it aside. They were given a choice between a meaningful victory with real Republican Tom McClintock or a hollow victory with a de facto Democrat, and they chose the latter. One immediate problem was solved, but multiple new and longterm ones were created.

A conservative revolt is brewing and will likely upend the "French wing" of the California Republican Party, says Spence. He has been bombarded with calls and phone calls from seething California Republicans. They feel burned and view the Kennedy appointment as a point of no return. There is talk, he says, of drafting Tom McClintock to run against Schwarzenegger, and "Mel Gibson's name is being floated."

That a center-left Republican like Schwarzenegger will do more damage than a liberal Democrat is almost axiomatic at this point, and rank-and-file Republicans have been burned enough times to realize it. Because "moderate" Republicans appear less crazy than liberal Democrats and can neutralize Republican resistance through false promises and fake appeals to party unity, they can get away with all sorts of dubious things. Many of Schwarzenegger's "accomplishments" -- from his billions-for-cloning proposition to his gun and environmental laws to his routine appointment of Democrats to judgeships -- are moves that would have met stiff resistance had Gray Davis proposed them.

Schwarzenegger's selection of a former Gray Davis cabinet secretary as his chief of staff perfectly illustrates the lost opportunity of the Recall: instead of ending the Gray Davis agenda, the Recall extended it, and shrewd Democrats who let Davis twist in the wind knew it, seeing Schwarzenegger as a Trojan horse for liberalism and a far more effective proponent of the Davis agenda than Davis ever was or would be.

The California Republicans had a huge percentage of the Recall vote to work with, and they squandered it on a celebrity who just happened to have an R. after his name. Had Schwarzenegger not parachuted into the race on the Jay Leno show (which was one of many signs that California Republicans were about to be taken on a very silly ride) and so easily convinced GOP leaders to back him despite his obvious indifference to much of their stated platform, Tom McClintock would have won easily, and the direction of the state government would have changed substantially. Real debates, not the me-too debates into which Schwarzenegger has been consistently drawn, would have occurred, and the party would have grown through morale-boosting fights.

Schwarzenegger's chief-of-staff fiasco confirms that when the Republican Party forfeits its principles in order to win, it has no principles left once it does, leaving it in tatters, both philosophically and politically. Even the crassly political argument for blindly supporting Schwarzenegger -- that his glow would cause the ranks of the California Republican Party to swell -- has proven illusory. The state party is now viewed as a pitiful arm of the hybrid Schwarzenegger administration, wholly severed from the conservative movement and useless to propel its officeholders to victory.

Schwarzenegger hasn't enlarged or energized the Republican base, and his blatant giving away of the store is likely to undercut the chances of Republican officeholders across the board in the next election. The Kennedy appointment, plus Schwarzenegger's plan to give the Democrats much of what they want in the next budget, is expected to sap morale when the party's aspirants need it most.

"This is kind of the thing that can hurt all our state wide nominees," says Spence. "This is going to drag down the whole party."

George Neumayr is executive editor of The American Spectator.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The difference here is that we back up what we claim with FACTS. Truth to RINOs, like with their 'Rat brethren, is like a cross to a vampire.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Et tu ?

[fieldmarshaldj]

RINO make mess, RINO complain, RINO run away.

Rinse and repeat.

[Itzlzha]

Well golly gee, I wonder who was taking the heat here on FR for saying that during the recall?

We who stood against SchwarzenKennedy stand here in this mirror with you! Including those I have not pinged due to the fact that I don't remember all of the names who were with us

We who were in the trenches against the "Big Tent/Big Gulp"-ers here whho were for winning with SchwarzenKennedy, and were all screaming "McClintock can't wwwwiiiiiiinnnnn"...nevermind that these morons had no concern as to what a SchwarzenKennedy win really meant, and what Conservative principles were being advanced/harmed!

Well, that was a tatse of what we have now! The "Party over Principles" crowd of RINOS/Country Clubbers/Rockefellerites/"Big Tent/Big Gulp"-ers simply wanted to marginalize the Conservative base!

They got it!

Don't expect Conservatives to BOHICA for ANY liberal/moderates anymore...nor for any pretend Conservative, that simply mouths platitudes and never means/believes passionately in what they say!

In other words, Pragmatism SUCKS...it's a fraud and a one way street with Liberal/Moderates, and you all can go pound sand from now on!

These same folk are all over FR with "Tancredo can't wwwwiiiiinnnn" and "Tancredo means we'll get Hillary!"!

No, listening to you clowns will get us there. Time to either put the brakes 100% on this car heading over the cliff, or to bail out and leave these morons to their own self-induced fate!

[Itzlzha]

Pinging you to my post 144!

I KNEW I forgot some good FReepers in my pings...you were right there at the front of the battle!

Gee, ain't it fun to see thr FRinos and FROBL twits just absolutely lathered in defense of their idiocy and SchwarzenKennedy?

What a great "wiiiiiiiinnnn" Ahhhnuld was....NOT!

[BobS]

"What happened is you just got mugged by a RINO.

I'm talking about a chief executive of a State. He's supposed to have defined goals and stick to them as a Republican. I wasn't mugged. I was made unpleasant.

I thing Bush refused to meet with him recently while he was here for a day or two.

[SierraWasp]

I like the cut of your jib, ol boy! And if your a girl... I'll just say: "Atta boy, girl!"

[webheart]

We are NOT better off than we were 2 years ago and it's not hard to prove that to thinking people!!!

Actually, we are better off than we were 2 years ago, but it isn't due to anything Arnold has done. State revenues are rising as if by magic, due to the economic stimulus of Federal tax cuts. That is penomenon akin to inheriting money from a long lost relative, you get to spend it but you didn't really have to earn it.

[SierraWasp]

Are you gonna be tellin us next that Jesus was a Liberal, too?

[Itzlzha]

< chuckle >

And thanks!

[Hildy]

What that has to do with ANYTHING is beyond me. A guy posts pictures of girls in bikinis on his profile page is making a statement about himself. I'm just stating a fact. If you don't think there's anything wrong with it, then why on Earth do you care? And Arnold is my boy because he did what was necessary to take out that Gray Davis. Comp rates are down...he promised that...CA car registration rates returned to their lower rates...he promised that. He tried his best to get those propisitions passed, but the Republicans did not show up. If they didn't show up for that, what makes you think they'll ever support a Conservative? Those propositions were as Conservative as there's ever been in California. It's just going to be impossible to have a true conservative governor of a State like Caliifornia...because the residents aren't Conservative. You take what you can get and if Arnold got the same backing and support he got when he first ran, things would be alot better...but Pubs got lazy and now, to blame it all on Arnold, is disengenuous and just plain wrong.

[SierraWasp]

Economically, you are correct. But that will soon be gobbled up by new taxes and new bureaucrats he has appointed with vast new regulation.

I was speaking of these things, plus the humongous, gigantic "box" he has put the entire Sierra-Nevada Mountain Range into that will NOT benefit ANYONE in that 25 million acre region that dwarfs New England!!!

This one's for you, alia!!!

[SierraWasp]

Thank God those aren't summa Arnold's communist Cubans!!!

[SierraWasp]

When Ronald Reagan wrested the Governorship away from Pat Brown, the majority of CA was NOT Republican, nor conservative. Please re-examine your mind-set. Thanks.

This one's also for you, alia!!!

[moose2004]

Kind of reminds me (in a slightly different way) of June/July 1993 when Bill Clinton's poll numbers were in the tank because of his support for gays in the military. To fix his pr problems Slick hired David Gergen as a senior adviser, a well known Repub who had worked for Nixon, Ford and Reagan.

[Alia]

No, they weren't conservative such as the term "conservative" means now. Comparing that "age" of then to the "age" of now is absurd, SierraWasp.

Then, California was economically growing. The schools were outstandingly good. The state wasn't as polarized in re the "political" stuff. Unions weren't running the state.

The melting pot of CA was somewhat unified less in "victim" status than in families working to improve their lot in life through MERIT and earnest work and education.

Trying to compare the "CA Reagan" days to now?

Okay. I'll put on some more Beach Boys music and remember the fine days of CA life. Because it ain't the Beach Boys playing anymore.. Yeah.. right! The popular musicians in CA are heralding "California Girls", huh? Which group would be doing that? Pink Pistols?

[45Auto]

60% of the California electorate think that communism is still a viable political system.

[SierraWasp]

How do you explain the 1994 Republican sweep of CA's elections, smarty pants?!?

[Hildy]

yea, but there were like 2 million less illegal immigrants and dead people.

[Hildy]

Why am I wasting my time responding to you. sigh...I lived in CA up to six months ago. My husband, 66 years old is a native...all our relatives live there....how many relatives you got living there, bud? And by the way, aren't you the state that elected Al Gore several times?