Posted on 06/11/2006 9:05:40 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
CHICO – It's back to the future for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign.
The cheesy Hollywood television pictures his campaign worked so hard to produce last year have been replaced by simpler images of the governor meeting voters at restaurants, Little League baseball fields and parks.
The harsh accusations he leveled against legislative Democrats, whom he once called “spending addicts” and “girlie men,” have been dropped in favor of expressions of respect and admiration.
Schwarzenegger, who embarked on a two-day barnstorming tour throughout the state to kick off his re-election campaign against Democratic nominee Phil Angelides last week, wants to show voters his humble, optimistic and friendly side.
“I am having a great time on the job,” he told scores of people at a restaurant in Chico. “And what a great honor it is for me to serve the people of the state of California.”
Angelides, the state treasurer, secured the Democratic nomination for governor in Tuesday's primary election by defeating state Controller Steve Westly 48 percent to 43 percent.
The Democrat kicked off his general-election campaign on a more combative note than Schwarzenegger.
“This will be a clear choice in this election between Governor Schwarzenegger, who has talked a good game and failed to deliver and has turned his back on hard-working Californians, and a Democratic ticket you can count on to stand up for California families,” Angelides said at a postelection news conference in Universal City.
Angelides celebrated his victory with a four-city fly-around with other members of the newly elected Democratic ticket Wednesday.
He briefly left the campaign trail to attend daughter Christina's graduation from Harvard and then unveiled a children's health care plan in Los Angeles on Friday.
Angelides was scheduled to be in San Diego last night for a San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council dinner, but canceled at the last minute.
During Schwarzenegger's postelection tour, the governor touted the accomplishments of 2004, his first year in office, which included reining in workers' compensation costs and winning voter approval of bond issues to reduce the state budget deficit.
He also spoke about what he intends to do in the future – campaign for the $37 billion infrastructure bond package on the November ballot so the state can afford to build roads, construct schools and repair levees.
“I love building,” Schwarzenegger told the restaurant audience, mostly local Republicans. “That's why I love bodybuilding and state-building.”
The unspoken message in all of this: 2005 never happened.
The governor's efforts to pass ballot measures to control state spending and take political power from unions resulted in his own loss of popularity, rejection of all four of his measures and a rancorous special election that cost the state about $50 million.
Schwarzenegger and his campaign aides have no intention of discussing 2005 during this campaign. It might as well have been airbrushed out of the governor's résumé, much like the old Soviet regime used to doctor photos to eliminate figures who had fallen into disfavor.
But the bitter special-election campaign left hard feelings that won't just go away, if Democrats have anything to say about it. Their message to Schwarzenegger: You're not in Hollywood anymore.
“You can be Terminator one year, be Danny DeVito's twin the next and come back and be Terminator again. You just write another script. You can't do that in politics,” said Kam Kuwata, who is managing U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's re-election campaign.
It has become a tradition in California campaigns for the incumbent to launch a television advertising campaign shortly after the primary election when the challenger, his resources sapped by the nomination battle, is unable to respond.
True to form, the Schwarzenegger campaign unveiled a commercial Friday that recycles an accusation by Angelides' Democratic primary opponent, Westly, that the state treasurer was advocating a $10 billion tax increase.
Angelides does favor raising about $5 billion from higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. The $10 billion figure refers to tax increases Angelides had advocated at one time or another, but not in the current campaign.
The second ad touts the public-works bond proposals that will be on the November ballot, saying that Schwarzenegger “brought Democrats and Republicans together to begin repair of our roads, schools and levees.”
Schwarzenegger's renewed emphasis on bipartisanship rings hollow after last year, Democrats contend.
“I think he's obviously doing things that are going to help him by going back to the bipartisan, 'different kind of Republican' message that he got there with in the first place,” said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who is not involved in the governor's race. “But it's harder to make this soufflé rise twice because he has this history now of being partisan.”
Democrats also maintain that Schwarzenegger will be dragged down by what they believe will be a strong anti-Republican tide in the fall.
“I think the prospects of his getting re-elected would be pretty damned good if it weren't for the national environment,” Carrick said.
“It's a concern, but it's nothing we can do anything about,” said Matthew Dowd, Schwarzenegger's chief campaign strategist. “The good news is governor's races don't seem to be linked that much to the national mood. People have a tendency to judge governor's races on their own because it's the CEO of the state.”
But Carrick said, “That's what I was telling Governor Cuomo (of New York) and Governor Richards (of Texas),” once-popular Democrats who were swept out of office in the anti-Democratic tide of the mid-1990s.
Polls indicate that Schwarzenegger is slowly but surely climbing out of the hole he dug for himself with the special election.
The new Democratic nominee also has considerable ground to make up because voters were so turned off by the relentlessly negative campaign between Angelides and Westly.
In a survey of people who voted in Tuesday's primary election, the Los Angeles Times found that 54 percent had a favorable impression of Schwarzenegger and 56 percent had an unfavorable impression of Angelides.
Schwarzenegger also has an advantage because there appears to be a reservoir of good will toward him.
In an April survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 71 percent of the voters questioned said they like the governor even though nearly half of those disapprove of his policies.
That suggests that Democrats should exercise caution, some analysts say.
“I think running attacks against Schwarzenegger would be very risky because he comes across as such a nice guy,” said Stanford political scientist Shanto Iyengar, who has written extensively about political advertising. “He may not know what he's doing, but he's a nice guy.”
The Schwarzenegger campaign intends to showcase the governor in settings that highlight his sunny demeanor and boundless optimism.
But mostly, Schwarzenegger is expected to go about the business of being governor, if in a highly visible fashion.
“My expectation is that while he'll be campaigning some, he'll probably be spending most of his time doing what he needs to do as governor,” Dowd said.
That would be a stark contrast to 2005, when Schwarzenegger's aides worked overtime to come up with visuals to illustrate issues, including a giant faucet spewing red ink to symbolize the budget deficit and bags full of money taken from a Brinks truck to show pension problems.
Schwarzenegger's staff also staged town-hall meetings with stacked audiences, usually chosen by the local Republican Party or chamber of commerce.
Some things don't change.
At Schwarzenegger's first major campaign event, a town-hall meeting in Redding on Wednesday, most of the audience was brought in by local Republicans and nearly all the questions were softballs, including one questioner who praised the multimillionaire governor for declining to accept his gubernatorial salary.
Too many girly men in CA.
This nation needs men who are not so damn sweet, compassionate, kinder, or gentler. We should demand men to lead us who will carry a BIG club and speak softly.
I am fed up with woosies who are afraid of offending people. Protect the country and obey your Oath of Office! Listen to the Voters, not international conglomerates looking to make a buck off our sweat.
This is CA. One needs "a reservoir of goodwill" to win here.
Arnold covers the sweet while Tom covers the salty. Together they just may carry the day.
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