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.
Absolutely.
However, I think that normalizing illegal immigrants by giving them CDLs, financial aid, and health care is the single most important factor in determining the long term welfare of this state. We'll have a tidal wave from Mexico and it will get very, very bad here (see Maywood X 1000). Angelides will welcome the invaders with open arms.
With the other issues, I think we can eventually undo the damage. I don't think we can as easily recover if we're swamped with the hostile minions of a foreign power.
My two cents.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger refuses to endorse the conservative Republican candidate, Dick Mountjoy, over his leftist Democrat comrade Diane Feinstein.
It is fairly simple. The goal is to move the country to the right. To do that, you start by defeating those farthest to the left. Defeating those closer to the right, you tip the balance farther to the left.
Accept the fact that you and I are way more conservative than most Americans. We will never see the country moved as far to the right as we would like. So the fight is to move the middle a little towards the right. It is a battle that will go on the rest of our lives. We won't win...if winning means we get everything we would like. But the left cannot win as long as we fight effectively.
Arnold's appointing them to positions in his administration.
Not me.........
Tom supports ARNOLD.
Mountjoy doesn't have a prayer against Feinstein and you know it.
We seem to diagree mostly about how to move rioght, I don't agree that 2 staeps back and 1 forward is much of an option..
we are screwed here if the repubs are asked to continue to rollover for the Gub as he submits for more state budgets and continues to push for more nanny statism..
That the Ca GOP played along with the charade we are witnessing is the worse part of all of it..
Those who wrapped themselves in Reagan are now quick to distance themselves from him and his principles all the while claiming he is their original action hero and are willing to follow an actor that couldn't shine his boots when it s come to policy and getting things done for the people instead of to them.
So the Democratic candidate is the more conservative? If so, vote for him. As I said, to move the government to the right, start by defeating those farthest to the left.
Thanks for injecting the word prayer into the debate..
This state is in serious need of a lot of it.
I'll leave it at that. I wouldn't want to offend all the Susan Kennedys and Zingales that stand four square with the Gub and 1st lady..
Do you have a point hidden in there?
Arnold's heading further in to deep left field and appointing hard core leftists to positions of power along the way.
The chickens have predictably come home to roost.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Hmmm...
The Governor signed the latest in Sheila Kuehl's endless succession of "gay rights" bills -- SB 1441. Did the Governor actually read this bill?
What was that difference again?.
He did veto the gay assembly's attempt to skirt the vote of the people on same sex marriage. Hey, I'm not saying the glass ain't half empty...
California will continue to go downhill if either of them win because both candidates will foist more socialism and screw up the state more. A victory by either will mean a Democrat monopoly on the legislature for the foreseeable future and that the buisnesses won't "come back" while they're in office.
CT faces a simular sitution with Lieberman vs. Lamont, as does Illinois with Topinka vs. Blago. RI has a shot at preventing this if they replace Chafee with Laffey as the GOP nominee.
In effect, the general election in CA is idelogically like a primary election between two liberal Democrats with different personality styles. Might as well speculate whether the U.S. would be better off with Gore or Hillary as President.
Anybody know any more about this one?
Democrats have DINOS, they just take care to make sure their DINOs are never nominated for high office. You don't see Dems in "Red States" like North Dakota arguing that they "have to" run pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family, pro-WOT, anti-tax-and-spend candidates in order to "win". Instead they just run liberals who put their political views on stelth mode and win based on personality "I'm for South Dakota first".
I wouldn't count Casey as a DINO either. Other than abortion, he's solidly leftist.
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