Dan Walters: Schwarzenegger, like Wilson, could play the immigration card

Sacramento Bee ^ | 3/19/6 | Dan Walters

[calcowgirl]

All well and good historical footnotes, but does it substantially change anything I said above?

Nope! :-)

This just proves that the people... The GRASSROOTS conservative people can initiate something and then if it looks promising, the corporate candidates will rush in to snatch it/seize it like a sucker fish sucking up pond scum!!!

Only if it also accommodates their greedy agenda, of course.

[goldstategop]

Karl Marx was wrong about one thing: the rich would come to prefer socialism and ordinary stiffs would prefer capitalism. Such is the irony of the dialectic of historical inevitability.

(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.")

[OKIEDOC]

Most of the Hispanics I know are most certainly against illegals and amnesty.

Most say they had to work for what they got and don't want the government cheapening citizenship.

[SierraWasp]

His "tough re-election campaign" was against Governor Moonbeam's baby sister!!! He had to rob conservatives of the only issue that was legitimate in order to win re-election over a Commie/Socialist that openly advocated that "we must control the means of production!"

Amerigomag, I think your dubbing of the Schwartzenegger administration as the "Wilsonnegger Gang," is absolutely spot-on and perfect!!! In fact I think you should receive some sort of special recognition from FR for coming up with such a well deserved and perfect slur!!!

In fact, I think somebody ought to write Walters with a reference to the "Wilsonnegger Gang" and see if we can't get the MSM to start using such a colorful moniker for his maladministration!!! It's time for this phoney Grinninator to be subjected to ridicule!!!

[zbigreddogz]

So you don't approve of him making major overhalls to workman's comp?

You don't approve of his vetoing of the gay marriage?

You don't approve of his recinding of the car tax?

You don't approve of the fact that he hasn't raised taxes even while under extreme pressure to do so?

Man, I sure wish we had Davis back!

[SierraWasp]

You totally slanted list doesn't include the much longer list of huge negatives he has imposed on us and the fact that he has just continued most of the Davis traits, in fact has made Davis look like a piker in all the areas that we recalled Davis for.

How did you ever become such a suck-up to someone that has sold out every conservative and Republican principle found in the CA Republican platform??? Me thinks you should be zbigredfaceddogz, buddy!!!

[zbigreddogz]

You totally slanted list

Slanted? Which part of it distorts the truth? Did he not do these things? Would they not have been different under Davis?

doesn't include the much longer list of huge negatives he has imposed on us

Enlighten me A. as to exactly what you mean, B. why those things wouldn't have happened under Davis.

and the fact that he has just continued most of the Davis traits, in fact has made Davis look like a piker in all the areas that we recalled Davis for.

Interesting. 'We' recalled Davis for all the same reasons, it seems.

I also breathlessly await how he's made Davis 'look like a piker' in anything. How, in pandering to Public Employees Unions? He tried to gut them, only to have Conservatives not turn out for the election. Go figure. In raising taxes? Oh wait, he hasn't. It not cutting taxes? Oh wait, he's done that too.

How did you ever become such a suck-up to someone that has sold out every conservative and Republican principle found in the CA Republican platform???

A. That's total bull$#!t. B. Supporting doesn't mean 'sucking up'. C. What has Bill Simon done in accomplishing things in the Republican plank? OH WAIT, HE HASN'T. Why? BECAUSE HE WASN'T ELECTED. D. I suppose that by supporting Arnold, Tom McClintock is a RINO SELLOUT too.

Man, you utopian conservatives sure are running out of friends fast!

Me thinks you should be zbigredfaceddogz, buddy!!!

I thik you should get out of 3rd grade playground tactics to try to win arguements.

I also think you should have a better then 3rd grade reasoning behind them.

[FOG724]

Remember right Davis was reelected the MSM mentioned him as a possible Presidential contender?

That is right. He was front line there for a while.

[backhoe]

From the vault of memories:

-Total Recall- the Gray Davis Soap Opera--

-Bustamante Busted? MEChA ties, and more.--

[Mojave]

Man, you utopian conservatives

Utopian being anyone to the right of Ted Kennedy?

[starbase]

Thanks, that's quite interesting. So I had reason to be a little suspicious. The guy in your article stated directly that Field Poll only tries to be accurate at the end, which is also their stated theory about polling accuracy! How convenient. Otherwise he said they are sloppy and understaffed in their work. Hmm, they just try to sail in at the end of an election.

One of these days I'm going to do a pretty thorough vanity on polls and include all of this stuff in a "primer" that will benefit Freepers every time they see a poll. And I've bookmarked your link for use in that project, thanks again.

[Amerigomag]

Thanks for the two references.

That's a check mark in Bill Bradley's column.

He was there!

[Ben Ficklin]

"Schwarzenegger, like Wilson, could play the immigration card."

He played it week before last when he joined the Western Governers Association in urging Congress to pass immigration reform.

[ElkGroveDan]

The Field Poll had Richard Riordan beating Bill Simon 56% to 21% in January of 2000, a mere 60 days before the election.

Big deal, they are good at the final poll in major races. Since there are rarely major upsets in the final weeks, so is anyone who reads the news.

The Field poll has some major, major flaws, starting with their sampling. They sample counties based on population not on the number of people in those counties that actually ever vote. So San Francisco, for example, is always oversampled. It's why things always look bad for Republicans and conservatives early on in the Field poll, and then get better later.

The really good private pollsters can call successfully races much farther out than Field does.

[Bill Bradley]

Yes, he had been developing the immigration theme publicly for that long. I think he started in August 1993 with a test market effort in Fresno, California, his usual test market locale. I remember it well because I was writing columns at the time about Wilson's hypocrisy on the illegal immigration issue -- he had sponsored legislation allowing more foreign nationals into the country as ag guest workers, didn't favor a crackdown on employers, etc.

This happened after they tried a test market positive campaign in Fresno and Eureka -- Wilson's secondary test market locale throughout his career -- and it bombed. People did not buy that things were going better or that he was responsible. I just talked about that experience earlier this morning with one of Wilson's former top people. Why? Because Arnold is about to unveil a TV ad about how things are better under his governorship ...

[Amerigomag]

First, thanks for taking the time to respond personally. I sense how busy you are.

Second, thanks for the details. First hand accounts are appreciated.

I suspect we are widely separated on certain aspects of this issue but we do have a common ground on two themes:

1) I'd like to see an informed discussion about this. I don't see it.
2) The left and the right are not as widely separated on a solution, as the polarized, vocal minorities on each extreme would lead a prudent man to believe.

Wilson's long history of marching hither and yawn, ideologically, is the best evidence I have that political pragmatism, not a steady, principled drum beat, was the guiding factor in his adoption of the foundling.

One area of disagreement in your recent piece was: (which by that point she was probably going to lose anyway). I'm not so sure if 187 were removed from that equation.

Brown was a good counter balance to Wilson's earned image as a jerk on the public level. Wilson's pragmatic style and his base comments had alienated many hard working troops in the trenches of the CRP and had he not jumped on the 187 band wagon, making little effort to control the inevitable descent into a cultural war, he may have fared much more poorly that November.