CA: Another Interview With Arnie Steinberg (Republican Strategist/Analyst)

Last year, FR’s interview with political strategist-analyst Arnold Steinberg caused quite a stir. Since then, I have been getting periodic requests to interview Arnie again. Finally I approached him. Steinberg, an author years back of graduate textbooks in politics and media, also has been widely published as a columnist. He has been appointed to Federal commissions and boards by the Reagan and Bush administrations, and he served on the California Coastal Commission. He is an expert in virtually every phase of electoral politics, including candidate and initiative campaigns, and political advertising, including mail, print and especially broadcast. He has advised law firms on legal strategy and jury selection in major legal cases, and he has been an expert witness numerous times. He has conducted more than fifteen hundred quantitative (polls) and qualitative (focus group) studies, and he continues to consult selectively. Much of what Arnie says is controversial, but I guess that was the fun part for me, as an interviewer. Oh yes, remember, don't shoot me - I'm just the interviewer! :-) Here is the UNEDITED wide-ranging interview.

FR: For a long time, you’ve correctly predicted the winners in statewide elections in California, and the winning margin, even when you’re not involved…

FR: Early on, you called the then-developing special election a “largely foreseeable disaster.” You predicted all four measures would lose, and then said, that the governor’s people after the election would blame their total loss on lack of money. That indeed was their post-election line. But they were outspent.

AS: The gross rating points for the ads were overkill on both sides. The opponents could have run a better campaign and defeated all four measures with a sharper campaign that cost a lot less. But, remember, in fairness to the governor, the opponents could have cut a deal to stop the special election. But the vendors opposing the governor wanted to make money. And the governor’s opponents wanted to defeat the governor. In any case, no statistics support the dubious thesis that repetition at the margin would have impacted. Remember, polling showed the governor’s ads were having little effect. But they just kept coming. Why? It’s like brokerage churning in the old days. I do acknowledge that allowing the other side to frame the issue before the election, however, was a consequence of the unions’ early money advantage. But the governor and his team know, or should have known, this. Moreover, the unions were successful in paid media because the governor was unsuccessful in earned media, for reasons I’ve discussed in great detail before. My views remain the same: the governor erred big-time, strategically, by not moving decisively during his political honeymoon, when he had superb numbers and Democrats were afraid of him. Now, depending on what happens this November, he could go down in history as the one-term accidental governor.

AS: When Cruz Bustamante entered the special election, that clinched the already likely recall of Gray Davis. The press even gave Schwarzenegger a pass, except for the stupid articles by the Times near the end that may have rebounded to Schwarzenegger’s favor. His election provided Republicans with a unique opportunity to reshape and reform California government. Voters were in crisis-mode. So, a governor who had been elected by an accident then had an unprecedented opportunity to educate the electorate and, in the process, revitalize the Republican party in this state. He not only failed to seize the moment, but he did nearly everything incompetently, and people now think he’s a screw-up.

AS: I’m definitely not prepared to say that. Ask me after the June primary. The Democrats remain a party beholden to special interests. They could yet prioritize that huge group of seniors who also are gay, Latino and Catholic who happened to vote for Reagan and now want to become Muslims. Seriously, the Democrats are capable of conspicuous irrelevance. It’s just that the governor has become the Republican Gray Davis – more spending, more government, more deficits, political opportunism, and their shared obsession with raising money, and unnecessary wheeling and dealing that doesn’t pass the smell test. Just sloppy, mess stuff with campaign loans, muscle magazine deals, campaign money on the side to state employees and so forth. It’s all gratuitous. Overall, this governor is a political masochist whose wounds are largely self-inflicted. He also is under the mistaken impression that people elected Maria. She is an intelligent and resourceful woman who is not strategically gifted, at least in politics. It’s unseemly to have one’s spouse involved in the intimate details of governance, and in daily conference calls. Apparently, there is no one she respects with the clout to explain to her that her intervention in personnel will come back to haunt her, and the governor.

FR: Should the California Republican Party retract its pre-primary endorsement of the governor.

AS: Of course not. The party should unite behind the governor. Politics in this state is often governor-driven. Reagan upstaged the party, Deukmejian was aloof from it, and Wilson was conflicted. Oddly, the governor wants right-wing attacks, because he believes it makes him look more centrist. His conservative critics are implausible, because they are blamed (unfairly) for the outcome of special election, which was Schwarzenegger’s idea. It occurred because he didn’t hang tough in his first months in office, because he followed the advice of Maria and other Democrats to compromise. His political gullibility is further illustrated by his donating millions of his own money in the closing days of his campaign. He was taken to the cleaners by his own team. I guess it’s easier for him and, especially, Maria to believe he went, quote, “too far to the right.” His political analysis is schizophrenic: he runs in the recall as a reformist, populist Republican, but really preps to be an unoriginal, chamber of commerce Republican, but soon acts like a Gray Davis Democrat while driving his own Republican party into the ground. After making a fool of himself with on-again, off-again ballot measures, he acts like Milton Friedman on steroids and is all over the map on the implausible theme of “paycheck protection,” a weird Grover Norquist slogan – I don’t know what he was smoking, and the obsessively pro-choice Schwarzenegger is suddenly embracing parental notification (not unreasonable, at all, but far out for him)… Anyway, he raises tens of millions for a boondoggle and, in the process, ends up very weak while making his opponents stronger, and really discrediting needed policy reforms. And now, his chief of staff and his wife’s chief of staff are both from the Davis administration, and his spending and borrowing put Davis to shame. He still doesn’t understand that no matter what he spends on education, the education lobby will say it’s too little. And he is a lightning rod for Democrats

AS: It should have been dedicated to the cement companies and construction unions. And these folks will probably fund the infrastructure bonds. And, then there are the bond underwriters. You know, Schwarzenegger’s politics oscillate like a pendulum. He’s not pragmatic, he’s erratic. We truly need infrastructure, but he doesn’t have a clue how to go about it. It’s a reckless approach. Whatever is done eventually be highly modified, and the Democrats will get credit. Schwarzenegger looks silly saying “Build it…build it…build it.” He comes across like a kid in a candy shop. . It’s not like he made infrastructure a campaign issue in the recall. Look, I know where he’s coming from. When I was a young man, I encountered Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in his 1970 reelection campaign in New York. Gov. Schwarzenegger thinks he’s the Norman Vincent Peale of infrastructure. And Rockefeller had thought the Albany mall would be his pyramid. Arnold Schwarzenegger is happy when he talks about doing things. He’s high energy. It’s dangerous to have a guy like him in office, because the only way he can get his adrenalin going now is to spend taxpayer money. Free market people liked some of the English rulers during the Industrial Revolution precisely because they so were preoccupied with their sexual affairs, they didn’t govern. So we had monumental economic progress that lifted people from poverty. Anyway, there is little passion in the California Republican party for this governor, but who or what else does the party have?

FR: What kind of reaction did you get from last FR interview, where you ridiculed the special election campaign as a nonstarter, doomed to failure?

AS: I received email and telephone calls from prominent, very substantial Republican donors who privately agreed with me and said they had been taken for a ride. And I promised never to reveal their names. I’ve had inquiries from individuals and corporations for possible future consulting to evaluate political requests for major contributions, or to sign off on whether supposedly optimistic surveys are valid, accurate, and meaningful.

AS: I don’t know, and I’m so glad it’s not my problem. And there are many very solid Republican campaign professionals in this state who are doing first class work product for their clients. On the big picture, nothing is happening in the U.S. Senate race. The legislative districts remain drawn against Republicans; and last year’s redistricting ballot proposition was, in my judgment, for show, because it would not have been implemented until the 2008 elections and then ripe for challenge as based on old (2000) census data. I guess the party can try to develop candidates for nonpartisan office and let them graduate into legislative and congressional candidates down the line. But on the governorship, it’s tough going. If he wins, we basically have four years that likely are barely distinguishable from a Gray Davis tenure, and maybe they are worse. And if he loses, Republicans face statewide demographic trends that further marginalize them. He could have been the first in a line of several Republican governors, because he had a unique chance to educate voters. Instead, he could be the last Republican governor.

AS: Perhaps, because I had high expectations, because he was elected as a populist-reformist, not a business-as-usual Republican. There was no reason for him to raise big bucks, especially from Republican donors, to fund a Gray Davis fiscal bailout scheme packaged as a California recovery. Who funds an operating deficit with bonds, especially if you do not make structural reforms? He could have gone over the heads of the recalcitrant legislators when they were in awe of him; but when he sold out so early, they realized that he’s not really so macho. That said, it’s more than policy and missed opportunities like pension reform, which he now discredited. And my guess is that county and city governments throughout the state are threatened with bankruptcies within a decade, maybe less, unless they reform. So, reform will come, but not because of this governor, but in spite of him and how he set back the issue. But it’s not really this issue, or that issue, it’s whether voters feel that he was going to make significant change, without being power-hungry or autocratic. I’ve said in other places in far more detail how he squandered his time raising money and appearing at staged events, rather than governing and communicating. He and Susan Kennedy and others around him obviously do not understand that he is viewed now, and deservedly, as just another politician. Schwarzenegger’s campaign committee received $25,000 from PUC-regulated AT&T (for whose merger she, as PUC Commissioner, voted four days later) three weeks before she received the same amount from the governor’s committee. She is a political disaster. Look, it’s only a matter of time before she renounces taking money from his political committee. In other words, she’ll flip-flop. By that time, it will be too late. Apparently, she was a point person for fundraising for Gray Davis. What about her recent absurd suggestion she might have trouble making her mortgage payment without supplements from Schwarzenegger’s campaign committee? Hardly. Did she even disclose to Schwarzenegger her consulting last year for water-tycoon Keith Brackpool, who with his companies had given Gray Davis $345,000 and was involved, under Davis, in water policy and now stands to benefit from the governor’s proposals? All of this will be, shall we say, slow water torture, in the state’s newspapers.

Ahhh... but why did they lose? Did their party support them or stab them in the back?
It's hard to win when the Quarterback is playin' for the other team.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-steel011503.asp
Tom McClintock, the conservative state senator who was the nominee for controller, was also a victim of Parsky. McClintock, a popular conservative thinker and leader, led in all the polls and had the best chance of any Republican to win a statewide office. The RNC had sent Parsky $600,000 to help the down-ticket candidates. Even though McClintock was fighting for his life against a multimillionaire Democratic opponent who was pounding him on TV, Parsky passed him a paltry $100,000 and sent the remainder to moderate candidates with much-dimmer prospects of winning. It's worth noting that McClintock — easily the most-conservative member of the statewide ticket — received more votes than any other GOP statewide candidate, ultimately losing by only 22,000 votes out of almost 6.5 million cast.

Thanks, this continued delusional set of statements you and some others here utter endlessly only show that you have no love much less an interest in conservatism.

You are a pretender, much as your golden boy.

You bring nothing to the table when it comes to working to make California a better place , imo.

..and you do it at a forum that is conservative , not run as a LGBT forum, something which you never refute you are actually here supporting their agenda. for shame, FO, for shame. how wellstonian you have become, shrill like hill.. lol

Yes, then we would have Bustamante.

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without Tom, you likely wouldn't have had enough support to make question 1 of the Recall go Yes and pass,,

then we would have had neither the Gub or Cruz, and kept Gray.

somehow, I don't think we would have had the additional debt.. even Rats know when their nests burning and will either flee or pee on it themselves to put it out.

what would that have done to your New Majorityites dreams and scheme to win in a coup?

play your little games, that's all you have to offer isn't it?

that and more debt ,, more borrowing, more hype, more threats.. and more haranguing conservatives as being the culprits, how predictable and how smarmy,, but we have come to expect that from you.

you're like a broken record. so you are susan kennedy, is that it?

is that your little secret. you seem to approve of her, you embrace the LGBT agenda as your own, how special you are.

I took so much cr*p from some people here who were rabid Arnold fans and couldn't see the folly in it, I'm just chuckling now. Actually, chuckling through my tears. A totally squandered opportunity. When will some supposedly Conservatives start acting like it on a consistant basis? Get this, it's not important to just get a win for the frontrunner with an (R) behind his/her name. The job is to get a Conservative in ! Excuse the rant, but us long time 'go to hell' Conservatives have seen this happen too many times to be lectured in the heat of a campaign by a loud, few new to the movement 'pups'. (OK .... my bitchin', moanin', cryin' and complainin' mode is now off)

Nam Vet

So take a look in the mirror, if you want to see whom to blame for "the mess".

So... I am responsible for promoting liberal judges, borrowing, spending, stemcell research ...

Wow! I had no idea! I did vocally oppose all of those things.

Steinberg:

Seriously, the Democrats are capable of conspicuous irrelevance. It’s just that the governor has become the Republican Gray Davis – more spending, more government, more deficits, political opportunism, and their shared obsession with raising money, and unnecessary wheeling and dealing that doesn’t pass the smell test. Just sloppy, mess stuff with campaign loans, muscle magazine deals, campaign money on the side to state employees and so forth. It’s all gratuitous. Overall, this governor is a political masochist whose wounds are largely self-inflicted.

What we would have had with Davis is massive tax increases

And we haven't with the gang? Reinstating the VLF subsidy and then borrowing $15B to make up the shortfall and increasing spending with the rest. Raising total, per capita, tax burdens to the highest in the state's history. Raising the tax rate on those Californians attending the CCS, CSU and UC systems by over 30% in three years. Proposing another huge tax increase to subsidize an additional $68B in bonding.

Who's kidding whom. The Wilsonegger gang is today, out-taxing Davis by a long shot. The gang still holds the record for the single, largest, state, income tax, rate increase in US history.

"What I don't understand is why if California has good GOP Strategists why is it they are doing nothing to mount a solid campaign against Feinstein and why they ran a weak candidate against Boxer. McClintock (IMHO) could run a solid campaign against Feinstein."

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That's a very good question. The only answer that is consistent with their actions, is that CA conservatives do NOT really want to win, they want to have Democrats dominate CA, so they can cry in their beer and post whiny posts on internet boards. Every time some people in the CAGOP want to nominate a Republican who can actually beat some of the Dems they run against, the so-called conservatives torpedo it, nominate someone who has no chance against their Dem opponent in the election.

No Republican can win in CA without the support of independents, who break 2 to 1 for Dems, and some Dems, with only 35% Republicans in the state.

CALIFORNIA VOTER AND PARTY PROFILES

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/JTF_VoterProfilesJTF.pdf

"The Democratic Party currently has an advantage of 1.4 million voters over the Republican Party (7.1 million to 5.7 million) or 9 percentage points (43% to 34%), according to the Secretary of State.

Among those most likely to vote in this year’s elections, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 7-point margin (44% to 37%), while 15 percent of likely voters are registered as independents.

... the fact that independents are more likely to lean toward Democrats than Republicans (42% to 28%) tends to work to the disadvantage of the GOP in statewide elections."

I hear ya! I did read some posts from you folks opposing the recall and they did make me think about it. I struggled with the voting choice but, at the time, didn't have your vision. Looking back, it's clear as mud.

I have never been part of the "win at all costs" crowd. More than once I posted "Winning with Arnold is not Winning for the state, the people, or the party." That part I had right.

That percentage of Dems to GOP is only going to grow as more and more California Conservatives continue to move out to Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, etc. We did (12 years ago) my uncle did last year, my sister is going next year when my BIL retires, and I understand my mother is planning to move, too. That is just one family, but we are all conservatives.

I hate to see California implode, but they are being run stupidly and it's bound to catch up sooner rather than later.

It's not for lack of strategists that the GOP suffers. The party appears to be run by arrogant know-it-all amateurs that don't--and won't--listen. They fight to abandon conservative principles rather than try to sell them through informatative and educational campaigns. They don't listen to the people, instead dictating to those people what they should believe or who they should support.

How else can one explain the party's continuous push to support a big-spending, big-borrowing, land-grabbing, pro-gun control, pro-GLBT, pro-abortion, pro-minimum wage liberal who promotes subsidizing taxpayers for the likes of stem-cell research, hydrogen highways, solar roofs, and global warming?

That's a very good question. The only answer that is consistent with their actions, is that CA conservatives do NOT really want to win, they want to have Democrats dominate CA, so they can cry in their beer and post whiny posts on internet boards.

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Take your snotty little posts and hit the road.

You want to insult folks, go to DU. They are much more deserving of your diatribes than conservatives at FR, which you obviously are not one of with that latest idiotic set of remarks.

The Moderates or at least that's what they pose themselves at here at FR and in california in general are mostly to blame, they support abortion, banning guns, pushing a gay agenda , all the while blasting conservatives and others who don't go along with their leftist agenda.

They call it growing the party or going the Big Tent route and then bitch openly here to no end when they are asked to explain what is republican , much less conservative in going down that path. so , of course, when they are called on thier deception and devious ways, they blame it all on conservatives that donlt get with it. Go figure.

Try and get them to actually debate issues or refute facts as to what they are really all about and they skulk away.

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