Dan Walters: Governor's tactic of running against Legislature collapsed

Sacramento Bee ^ | December 19, 2005 | Dan Walters

[calcowgirl]

Every political campaign, be it a contest between two candidates for office or a duel over a ballot measure, is an exercise in definition.

Every campaign begins with an assumption that a candidate or cause has an automatic base of friendly voters, and winning hinges on appealing to those who are not automatically committed to one side or the other by defining the terms of the contest. It's Politics 1-A, but Arnold Schwarzenegger flunked in what must be regarded as his single-biggest political blunder.

As the governor launched the mother of all California political battles a year ago, he wanted to define it in the simplest possible terms - himself vs. an unresponsive Legislature beholden to special interests - that would appeal to the independents and moderate Democrats who had elevated him into the governorship after recalling Democrat Gray Davis.

(snip)

Had Schwarzenegger kept to his "keep it simple" strategy of running against the Legislature, he may well have prevailed. But he fumbled in defining the contest, allowing his opponents to frame it much less favorably. From Schwarzenegger vs. the Legislature, the battle morphed into Schwarzenegger vs. cops, teachers, firefighters and nurses even as he attempted to declare it to be a "great battle (against) evil."

Having persuaded himself that he was immune to the usual political rules, he believed that the image of him being painted by his foes would not take hold. "Those poor little guys," he said of them in February, "they're trying very hard. ... They may have a wonderful dream about that. But the reality is very sad for them. The reality is they are not going to get my numbers down and ... we're going to go all the way and we're going to win this year. ..."

Those "poor little guys," however...

[calcowgirl]

This is #7 of a 10 part series being authored by Dan Walters.

[goldstategop]

That's what happens when you don't take politics seriously and allow your opponents to define you. The unions won the battle when they defined Arnold as a greedy, power-hungry politician out to harm police officers, firefighters, teachers and nurses - people with whom the public had a great deal of sympathy. When it came down to the Governor vs the Little People as opposed to faceless unions, the battle was over before it even began.

(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.")

[darth]

Has anyone taken a hard look at the effect of vote fraud in the last election? I know that when I worked campaigns in California 10 years ago vote fraud was HUGE.

[Amerigomag]

The last Secretary of State to tackle that issue was Bill Jones (R), (1994-2002) who worked long and hard to "clean up the voter rolls".

Jones never mentioned voter fraud as an underling motive but the cause was implicit. Jones was able to remove a sizable percentage of antiquated registrations lessening the chance for duplicitous voting. The current Secretary, Bruce McPherson (D), has never mentioned resuming that project.

[fieldmarshaldj]

McPherson isn't a D, but a squishy "R."

[Amerigomag]

Thanks. I was typing McPherson and thinking Shelley. My apologies.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I had hoped Ah-nold would've appointed someone more, ahem, "strident" as Secretary of State, but of course, with RINOs, Conservatives can wish with one hand and poop in the other, and we know which one will be full-up first. :-|

[Amerigomag]

I had hoped Ah-nold would've appointed someone more, ahem, "strident".

In fairness to McPherson, Jones was exceptional and approached his responsibilties with politcal savvy. He realized that there was little he could do in a Democrat dominated state, holding a largley ceremonial office. Except ... he had the power to clean up the voters roles and there was little Democrats could do because of his clever use of the emphamism and the popular acceptance of his programs which he touted often and loudly.

California lost an able public servant when Jones was forced out of the Secretary's job by term limits and sought higher office, above his abilities.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I had thought that Ah-nold could've appointed Jones back to his old job (since he wasn't technically the "incumbent"), though I'm not sure how that would square with the technicalities of the term limits laws in the state.

Sadly for Jones, he ran an absolutely horrible race for the Senate (of course, Ah-nold did zilch to help him), and it doomed his viability as a candidate for the forseeable future.