Posted on 12/03/2005 11:25:15 AM PST by Kenny Bunk
Top California Republicans are wondering if Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is moving left politically following his appointment to chief of staff of Susan Kennedy – a leading liberal activist and former aide to Democrat Gov. Gray Davis.
"We're not moving anywhere," Schwarzenegger says, insisting that he is continuing to go "in the same direction."
Some of his Republican colleagues wonder what direction that may be.
"I'm getting more e-mails off of this [the Kennedy appointment] than I do for Viagra," said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, in an interview with the L.A. Times newspaper.
"Since the special election, where we were very loyal [to Schwarzenegger], all we've heard about was a $50 billion bond and looking at clemency for [convicted murderer and gang leader Stanley] Tookie Williams." Asking if there isn't "even one Republican in the state to be qualified as chief of staff?" Spence said. "I think the Kennedy thing was just the last straw."
What especially irks GOP leaders is Kennedy’s popular standing among California liberals. She is a former executive director of the state's ultra-left-wing Democratic Party, a former top member of former Gov. Gray Davis’ staff and - to the chagrin of advocates of traditional values - an abortion supporter and admitted lesbian who recently "married” her lover in a Hawaiian civil union ceremony.
GOP officials aren't alone in their criticism of the appointment, as Schwarzenegger discovered during a radio talk-show appearance with conservative host Roger Hedgecock on San Diego's KOGO radio station.
Said Hedgecock "You have once again stirred up everyone in the whole state with this announcement. This woman seems completely incompatible with any Republican principles."
Not so, said the governor, who described Kennedy as a pro-business moderate who had supported him on all of his doomed special-election ballot initiatives, including one which was fiercely opposed by Democrats because it would have put a limit on spending.
"All of the things that I have done in the last two years she believes in and actually said many times to me during the last two years that she has become a big fan of mine because of the things that I do," he told Hedgecock.
While admitting that some Republicans will be "up in arms about" the Kennedy appointment, Schwarzenegger told his host "but I have to pick someone that I feel comfortable with. And I talked to a lot of people for this job, and she was the one who I felt most comfortable with." Not every Republican is appalled at the Governor's choice. Pat Dando, president and chief executive officer of the San Jose-Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce told the San Jose Mercury News:
"I would hope that they would look at her as an individual with qualifications that are important to do the job of chief of staff." He added that Schwarzenegger "appears to be more interested in finding well-qualified individuals to work with him on both sides of the aisle than sticking to a party line, and I think that's healthy."
I think you only support unity if they are your principles and no one elses
That's no phair GVgranny! I cain't make them little suckers!!!
(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.")
Only 150 posts, and you guys have managed to trash Hannity, Bush 43, Bush 41, Arnold Schwarzennegger and Dick Cheney.
So here is my challenge. Other than Tancredo, is there anyone you guys could support for president in 2008. I've already seen you guys trash, Allen, Rice, McCain, Guilianni, and Romney.
Ah... the out-of-state east coast operatives show up to spew nonsense. How quaint.
Run along now. There has to be an empty sandbox for you to play in somewhere.
How much of that migration is from Americans in other states, and how much is from immigration? It wouldn't surprise me if the former is a net negative now.
Did I miss something? I thought this thread centered on, domestic, California politics. If these casual, local conversations have national, strategic importance I'd better polish up on my spelling.
Nope. Found the culprit. Some eager beaver cross linked this thread to three other national topics and the gates of partisan hell were opened.
By March 2003 all of California's population increases were derived from the legacy of immigration, the vast majority of which was illegal, substantially from Mexico.
Past that date the "native" population of California began shrinking in an intrastate exodus, but not fast enough to compensate for the rush of immigrants.
Awfully low standard you have there.
Stupid is as stupid does. For any Republican, appointing Democrats to policy posts is just plain stupid, and peculiar. Do our GOP elected officals feel the Democrats will return the favor after their Democrat appointees sabotage them and get them out of office? That's stupid, too.
It is also hard to take California Republicans seriously when they don't even have a coordinated campaign against the massive vote fraud that distorts the state's politcs. Hell, no California Republican ever mentions it!
Democrats don't like him either though, do they?
I can see devil in the details problems with 76, but I'm not convinced 77 was a bad thing. What concerned you with regard to it?
At this point, I'm starting to think that the RINO's bogeyman, Bustamante, would have been more conservative than Schwarzenegger.
That's probably accurate because of Bustamante's Hispanic heritage but that doesn't mean Bustamante would have been more conservative in his fiscal governance.
Bustamante would certainly have managed to support the cost increases of homosexual unions, redistribute wealth to his poor Mexican brethren and increase taxes in hard times to sustain government largess to the Democrat core constituents.
By far the most troubling aspect of his tenure in office would have been the message his political and social success provided to Mexico's poor. Bustamante, born to illegal aliens, reportedly at their US residence in Dinuba, has no birth certificate on file in Tulare County. The troubling aspect of this circumstance is compounded by the fact that his early January birth occurred coincident to his parent's traditional visit to their family in Mexico.
That's interesting. According to my brother his dad was a barber and cut his hair. I'll have to ask him if he knows anything about this. I do remember some scuttlebutt about this during the recall...
El Pocho. Behold the new citizen of Aztlán. Identifies himself as a Mexican. Actually is sort of American, sort of Latino. Speaks Third-Grade English. Disgraceful kindergarten Spanish. Incoherent fuzzy left thinker in both languages. If you're making a movie about him, CHeech Marín, definitely. Political low-rider.
Helps the Dems mobilize the all-important illegal alien "vote," without which there would definitely be more Republicans in Sacramento to guide Ahnolt. Not only will this Bustamante fool probably be made Governor someday, if we don't shape up the Border and the Southwest voter rolls, he'll run for President!
At that time illegal immigration was just becoming a local nuisance. The area's small, local, agricultural towns began filling with Hispanic's from "Texas". Their anchor babies were graduating from local high schools and vying for positions of local, political power based on the rising strength of their rapidly swelling demographic.
No local, Republican officials raised a red flag about the issue because, beyond the evidence of no recorded birth certificate, the circumstances were speculative. The most pronounced change occurred on the Internet as Bustamante won statewide office. While remarks attributing Mexican citizenship of his grandparents remained, the references to the status of his parents suddenly disappeared even from the Spanish language publication archives.
Bustamante's circumstances were even the subject of some discusion on this forum at that time but a server crash destroyed many of our early archives. Today, the only remaining published evidence is archived by Google, which took periodic "pictures" of the entire US Internet, or then Usenet, since the inception of Google in 1981.
See reply #126 on this thread for the answers, mel...
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