Posted on 11/10/2006 9:06:56 PM PST by FairOpinion
In his victory speech Tuesday night to a confetti-swamped crowd at the Beverly Hilton, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a message for the rest of the Republican Party after its worst defeat in decades.
Follow "the California way," he said. "We are proving to the nation that there is another way to go, a better path to solve problems."
Schwarzenegger's landslide victory in a largely Democratic state illustrates the growing power of moderate candidates and the electoral appeal of bipartisanship, and it could contain important lessons for Republicans and Democrats as they seek to position themselves in the future, analysts and politicians said.
"If I was a Republican National Committee chair, I would hire Arnold out and teach Republicans what is necessary to put together a winning campaign," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California. "He really is the poster boy of what Republicans have denied for so long. Elections are won from the center."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Comparing Ronald Reagan with Arnold is absurd.
“We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all.” — Ronald Reagan, 1965
The war on terror and islamofacism will always be a ongoing thing and will have to adjust quickly as new threats imerge. This isn't world war 2 where victory will be won in a couple years and everyone alive gets to go home, and the world is at peace for decades.
Its hard to set a perfect plan for it. The MSM knows this and played it hard to get the dems victory. But the ROP will continue to the ROP, so this will continue on and on and on.
The internet is a wondrous thing. You can just pop over their website and look at what their views are on the issues, and they'll tell you right out that they're pro-abortion, anti-gun. etc, etc. And then you turn around and see people on FreeRepublic saying they're the one we should have as President.
Well, Arnold did NOT raise taxes and vetoed the most damaging bills passed by the Dem Legislature. That is the best one can hope for, when we have an overwheling Dem majority in the Legislature, as we have in CA.
"Sure, the Dems just took over Congress and you think we should just sit here waiting for them to make a mistake, instead of figuring out what it takes to take power back from them.
The last time they took over the House, they kept it for 40 years."
Your idea of what it takes, apparently, is to abandon the conservative principles that ripped power out of their grasp TO END that forty year period. Don't confuse what works in California with the rest of the country.
And you're not going to have to wait long for them to make a mistake. They can't hide on the back row and lob grenades any more. It's very likely that we're going to go into 2008 with some extra arrows in the quiver that they themselves provide us. C'mon; they're clowns.
It's way too early to panic and start talking about jettisoning convservative principles (unless you weren't too keen on them to begin with, like your old buddy Arnold).
Just becaue they were actors in previous careers, the comparison stops right there.
Agreed. Comparing Reagan, one of the greatest presidents of the united states, to Arnold is absurd.
So why don't you just suggest that Arnold was a disingenuous rather empty suit panderer, who put into effect a lot of garbage, but it was worth it to stay in power to stop the kooks from doing more of it. If Westly rather than Angelides has been nominated, you would almost no case at all. Angelides was your life line, and Arnold's.
Instead he siphoned off taxes already raised for things like transportation and spent them as he and his Rat allies pleased, then pushed borrowing tens of billions which we will be paying off with our taxes for decades.
And Reagan was also a better actor.
"Newsflash: It's going to be a leaner, meaner, more conservative Republican party in 2008"
"I worry about that. I'm seeing all these posts since the election of people saying we need to have more people like Giuliani or Schwarzenegger. With too few exceptions, I can't see much difference between those politicians' core principles and those of Chafee.
If that is the direction that FREEPERS want to turn the party, what's the chance of getting Libby Dole to start handpicking Conservatives to run for the Senate instead of more Rinos?"
Well, I have to admit, there is certainly no shortage of those running around screaming the sky is falling and that the Republicans need to run more to the center, which would just play into our opponents hands. It's amazing how many believe that if we just become the "democrat light" party, we'll be assured an unending string of victories. But I have faith that cooler, more reasoned heads will prevail before 2008.
The Ronald Reagan you try to present is not the Ronald Reagan I knew.
Join me in a dream of a California whose government isn't characterized by political hacks and cronies and relatives--an administration that doesn't make its decisions based on political expediency but on moral truth. Together, let us find men to match our mountains.
— Ronald Reagan, 1966
Arnold has done nothing but pander to the left on social issues and defer California's financial problems to the future through bond issues. Anyone who thinks he's actually addressed and solved any of the state's problems is dreaming. Please, name one problem he has addressed directly, I'm all ears.
Court the center, certainly. But be on the right. Arnold is not on the right.
Your totally predictable strawman miscasting. You really need a new script.
Why do you prefer THEM to Republicans?
Arnoldites are no more Republican than Feinstein. If it helps him personally, he'll outliberal Feinstein in a heartbeat. A Republican is someone who supports and advances the Republican Platform, or at least the majority of it. Anyone who advocate adopting Arnold's methods is advocating abandonment of the platform, and therefore what it means to be a Republican.
That's why I asked you what your proposed 2008 platform would be. You dodged the question, like you always do when asked what you believe in. 'Cause it for sure as Pelosi's a moonbat, you're no Conservative.
TWirP!
Hopefully. The response of President Bush so far isn't giving me a lot of comfort, but maybe he's doing his strategery thing again.
Oh, I know their positions. I'm just having a very hard time turning those into any kind of "core principle" --or anything that resembles the Republican platform for that matter. I hear ya on the discussions about President. Lots of shilling going on, imo.
Amend the Constitution, Arnold for President, out-democrat the Democrats...
From my recollection the FairOpinion account was the account that constantly urged conservatives to vote for Schwarzenegger.
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