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Schwarzenegger Is Pushing This Republican Into The Undecided Column
FlashReport ^ | 9/4/06 | Matt Cunningham

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.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: 2006election; arnoldwillwin; caelection; cagop; calgov2006; california; column; conservatism; dramaqueens; election2006; mattcunningham; oneterminator; onetermrino; pushing; republican; rino; sb1441; schwarzenegger; twotermarnold; undecided
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To: tcrlaf
Every time he has tried to hold the line, he has been beaten unmercifully by both the press, and the VOTERS....

Absolute bovine feces. The press celebrated his first act when he borrowed his way out of a cash flow bind with Prop 58. He promised to "cut up the credit cards" and had 60% approval ratings. It was only when it became apparent he had no intention of keeping his promises to control spending that his reputation began to slide. His ballot propositions, supposedly directed toward that end, were proven by the LAO to be hardly such.

261 posted on 09/04/2006 10:46:46 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (Angelides v. Schwarzenegger is like deciding between ebola and cancer, respectively.)
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To: Carry_Okie
I don't thinnk its a coincidence as long as he keeps the money tap flowing, the media keeps his approval ratings high. Turn it off, and they turn on him. Live and die by the media. A truth his opponent is belatedly learning for not getting flattering coverage for his campaign.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

262 posted on 09/04/2006 10:57:00 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Carry_Okie
<>> As I recall, he was CRUCIFIED for those proposals by the media, and the unions spending $100 MILLION DOLLARS against them?(!!!) I don't care HOW good you are, if you can't get the message out over the din, you're screwed...
263 posted on 09/04/2006 11:02:06 PM PDT by tcrlaf (VOTE DEM! You'll Look GREAT In A Burqa!)
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To: tcrlaf
As I recall, he was CRUCIFIED for those proposals by the media, and the unions spending $100 MILLION DOLLARS against them?(!!!)

You have a short memory. The special election was long after Arnold had already blown his cover and established that he was all about posturing, not substance. The budgets he submittted alienated his base right away. That base saw right through his bogus propositions and didn't fall for them. This is evidenced by the fact that the one proposition that came closest to passage was the one requiring parental notification prior to an abortion. It was also a proposition which Arnold did not include in his campaign.

The mediots attacked Reagan too, and look at the margins by which he was re-elected.

264 posted on 09/04/2006 11:14:18 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (Angelides v. Schwarzenegger is like deciding between ebola and cancer, respectively.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Only this time the media is gushing over him. A year ago he was toast. Today, he's back.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

265 posted on 09/04/2006 11:17:12 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop
A year ago he was toast. Today, he's back.

A year ago he was a RINO. Now he's a socialist.

266 posted on 09/04/2006 11:21:04 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (Angelides v. Schwarzenegger is like deciding between ebola and cancer, respectively.)
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To: calcowgirl
There was some good analysis of the Special Election campaign included in the following interview with Arnold Steinberg:


I'm sure Schwarzenegger will say he was briefed on how tough it will be. When he loses, he'll depict himself as a martyr who was pilloried, he'll say something about turnout, who knows what. But no reporters will ever ask the hard questions about how and why this guy's own team destroyed him, and the really hard questions about what their polling showed -- months ago, as well as more recently. It's like Lungren 98 -- everyone will forget that the polling either was entirely incompetent, with absurd voter turnout models, or just plain fraudulent. There was no other explanation back then.
Good, prescient stuff. Thanks, darlin'.
267 posted on 09/05/2006 12:38:33 AM PDT by L.N. Smithee (Angelides vs. Schwarzenegger = Hillary vs. Gore)
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To: ChiMark
But not voting is a plus for Angelides which would be far worse than what we have now.......FAR WORSE!
268 posted on 09/05/2006 1:29:19 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: AmeriBrit
Hardly! We ALREADY have socialism imposed on us by the Republican! Is that what our party wants to stand for? By voting for Arnold, we would be confirming for our political opponents that our principles and party platform mean nothing for us and our only care is power. I am reminded of the line in Robert Bolt's screenplay, "A Man For All Seasons," in which more is said to have sarcastically observed, "But what of the world for Wales?" Should we give up cheaply all we hold dear and near? That is where this Republican draws the line.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

269 posted on 09/05/2006 1:42:03 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Lunatic Fringe
California is not just Los Angeles and San Francisco. I live just 80 miles north east of Los Angeles where there is no overcrowding, no polution and we're not overun with mexicans, in fact there are very few here. Come to think of it I haven't seen one lately, not even cutting grass.

BTW: In case you should wonder, this is also a predominately Republican area in the state, so all the rot written here on FR about CA being full of queers, mexicans and Democrats is so wrong. Our main problem is our state government who have found ways with the help of clinton and soros to get the illegals to vote without being challenged .
270 posted on 09/05/2006 1:59:25 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: Amerigomag

Villargarosa [who-dinky] announced his support for Angelides today, according to KFI.


271 posted on 09/05/2006 2:08:11 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: AmeriBrit
It took him until Labor Day to come up an endorsement, eh? Sounds like the Democrats are making a show of rallying behind Angelides but they know privately he's good as gone.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

272 posted on 09/05/2006 2:14:55 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
Perhaps if we the voters could get Arnold some help to back him in Sacramento instead of acting like spoiled brats saying "I'm not going to vote", or "I'm going to vote 3rd party" we would see some progress, but as it is now Arnold's a lone survivor on a desert island among a sea of sharks.
273 posted on 09/05/2006 2:27:15 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: goldstategop
Since you admitted it was too much trouble for you to get off your butt and go and vote, I doubt you even read what was on the ballot last November. I doubt though that was the real reason you didn't vote, I'd be more inclined to think it was because you were so prejudiced.
274 posted on 09/05/2006 2:52:04 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: calcowgirl
he could try by earning it--


Since you and your clan are so picky about what others say, how can he earn it if he doesn't get a salary???
275 posted on 09/05/2006 3:38:57 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: AmeriBrit
I'm prejudiced in favor of real change. Flawed propositions and an incompetently run campaign was just a total turn-off.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

276 posted on 09/05/2006 3:44:07 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

no one can fake their IP address. Its a dead giveaway.



I would suggest you do a little research if your capable. What you'd learn might surprise you.


277 posted on 09/05/2006 3:51:56 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: goldstategop
Every time you mention Arnold your Kraut prejudiced attitude flashes like a neon sign. You'd find something to whine about with Arnold even if he was the most conservative republican on the planet just because he's Austrian.
278 posted on 09/05/2006 4:09:53 AM PDT by AmeriBrit ( What happened to 'Able Danger'? and which Clinton has all the missing FBI files?)
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To: AmeriBrit

And thereby so did Nunez since he's Villar's campaign manager.


279 posted on 09/05/2006 5:34:35 AM PDT by Amerigomag
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To: AmeriBrit
Unfortunately the lone survivors on the island are legislative Republicans and the Austrian has always been one of the liberal sharks circling in the legislative shallows, trying to pick off stray conservatives. He's been circling that island since Oct 2003.

Hopefully no offense to the AmeriBrit account , but we're frequently forced to correct revisionists who visit our house. They are victims not perps. They're continuously swamped with misinformation from the CAGOP account.

280 posted on 09/05/2006 5:46:21 AM PDT by Amerigomag
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