Posted on 09/04/2006 10:19:40 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
I don't recall even being in a situation where the closer Election Day gets, the less likely I am to vote for the GOP nominee.
Yet, that is where I find myself vis-a-vis Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I'm one of many conservatives who voted for Arnold in the recall, despite my preference for Tom McClintock. I found the prospect of Cruz Bustamante in the governor's office horrifying and wasn't convinced McClintock could win. The stakes so too high I though it prudent to back the Republican with the best chance of winning, and so I cast my vote for Arnold. Like other conservatives, I comforted myself with the rumor we'd heard for years that Arnold was really a libertarian. So, although he was squishy on the social issues, at least he'd be hard core on taxes, spending and freedom issues. After all, he was a Milton Friedman fan!
But ever since the Governor's nauseating policy of apologizing for the special election of 2005, it's been steadily more difficult to assembly a conservative Republican rationale for supporting his re-election.
He's signed a non-aggression pact with the government employee unions, promising he will never, ever again try to rein in their power. He talks a big game about building infrastructure, but is unable to just come out and support an infrastructure plan -- the 241 toll road completion in Orange County -- that has been EIRed and is ready to go.
This alleged acolyte of Milton Friedman signs an "anti-greenhouse gases" bill that will have no impact on the climate but will have negative impacts on California's economic competitiveness. And this is the same guy who tells every Republican crowd the same story about how he left Austria to escape its stultifying socialism -- even as he signs neo-Euro socialist bills like the emissions cap. I thought we elected a Republican as Governor during the rcall - not Al Gore.
Since being beaten by the government employee unions and adopting the Stoclkholm Syndrone as his political survival strategy, the Governor easgerly signs any minimum wage bill the Democrats send his way -- even though he knows they are job destroyers. He knows this, and yet signs them with a smile, anyway.
Old arguments employed to keep conservatives in line like "he's good on judges" hold no water when it comes to the Schwarzenegger Administration. Yes, he's appointed more Republicans than Gray Davis, but Republicans expect something more than appointing more Republican judges than your Democratci predecessor did. For example, how about no appointing public defedners who are proud of their qualifications to defend Serbian war crimninals at The Hague?
The Governor signed the latest in Sheila Kuehl's endless succession of "gay rights" bills -- SB 1441. Did the Governor actually read this bill?:
The bill would also expand the definition of discrimination under these provisions to include a perception that a person has any of these enumerated characteristics or that the person is associated with a person who has, or is perceived to have, any of these characteristics.
I would really love to hear the Governor affirm that he actually read that dangerous claptrap -- nothing is objectively real because reality is nothing more than perception -- and thought it was legislation that must be signed.
Everyday, I get e-mails from the Governor's re-election campaign. And I am trying to think of a single one that has, for even a moment, made me feeel proud Arnold Schwarzenegger is my party's nominee for Governor. And I can't think of a one. What I do remember are press releases bragging how Gov. Schwarzenegger is spending more money on education than anybody ever has in state history. Yessir -- that's why I became a Republican! To throw record sums of taxpayer dollars on failed government programs.
Perhaps the reader can detect the depth of my ever-deepening disenchantment with the Schwarzenegger Administration. Not that it really matters, because the Governor will be re-elected. He's blessed with a Democratic opponent who is a living caricature of the liberal excesses of his party and who gifted the Schwarzenegger campaign with his calls for billions in new taxes.
The Governor triangulates, buys off key Democratic special interests, adopts Democratic policies, and keeps enough conservatives in line by stoking their Fear of an Angelides Planet. He will win, and the Republican Party will find itself victorious in gubernatorial race but lacking a soul.
I think it was George Washington who said that a political party without principles is nothing more than a conspiracy to hold power. I'm afraid that is what is happening to the California Republican Party under the administration of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that is why I have gone from being a unapologetic supporter of his election in the recall to being undecided about whether I'll vote to re-elect him.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
I see that you flunked arithmetic too.
I'll be voting against Angelides.
The explanation on your ballot above the box you will be checking says, "Vote for one." You'll be voting FOR Arnold, no matter how you choose to spin otherwise.
I'm an Independent conservative who knows, by this stage of life, that ideological purity is self-destructive in a two party system.
The Whigs were a party without ideology.
"It isn't naivete and they ain't conservatives."
---
You are right, of course. THAT is the only explanation.
Real conservatives don't campaign for Angelides.
We're still waiting for that information of the Tacit ballots.
It's only sixty days until the election and a long trip to the nearest Central Committee office if prelimary paper work or certification is required.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Oh, so you choose to have fewer votes and accept the choice from among the candidates the two parties give you when you could have had a vote in that selection? I guess it's that same problem with arithmetic.
A "Dukakis conservative"
Is there also an Against ballot?
Are Against ballots available to other than certified partisans?
Can I be certified as a partisan by my local, Republican Central Committee?
Can an elector cast more than one Against vote against a single candidate?
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Whine. Whine. Whine. You're a conservative FReeper living in California and your two Senators are St. Francisco liberals. What do you expect? Arnold is a RINO and his opponent is a McGovern liberal. If I were there I would support Arnold rather than allow a career hardened leftist like Angelides become Governor.
The onl;y peopleI see posting PHILth's name is you and your (M)ilk, primarily to inflame and disrput threads, How hillaryesque.
Nice work, Hack!
Those must be the same "Republicans" that hijacked the Recall and gave us the Trojan Horse.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
"I'm so confused. Tacit ballots. Against ballots. Do you suppose they will be offering up a Conservative ballot, too?"
Let me try and help you, since you're confused. I could tacitly vote for Angelides by pouting and sitting home. I will vote against the corrupt union backed Democrat by voting Republican. There is no "conservative" option.
The Austrian has 30 more days to sign the recent flood of legislation submitted to his desk.
The sinkers will be signed the evenings of 8, 15 and 22 September. The oped reactions will hit on 11, 18 and 25 September.
Should be fun. Don't plan a vacation.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
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