Schwarzenegger Implores GOP To Follow Script of His Sequel: Court the Center

Washington Post ^ | Nov. 10, 2006 | John Pomfret

[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."

[Giant Conservative]

Selling out social conservatives---or selling social conservatives for pennies on the dollar---is a big part of what brought on the Election 2006 losses.

The other part of what brought on the Election 2006 losses is following the neocon agenda folks like you advocate.

[Giant Conservative]

So where were the "value" voters?

At home.

[Giant Conservative]

Election 2006 was lost for two reasons:

1. The Republican Party deserted cultural conservatives in too many ways.

2. The neocon agenda implemented by the Republican Party is really unpopular with most people in the United States.

[Giant Conservative]

And you think that further abandoning principles will win it back? Other than winning, what exactly DO you believe in? What is your vision for the Republican Platform of 2008?

Well said.

[Giant Conservative]

Now the FairOpinion account is urging conservatives to spread the Democrat gospel that only liberals can win and supporting liberal causes and liberal policies is a key to success in the Republican Party.

Well said.

[calcowgirl]

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/gg2006_unproc_ballot_status.pdf

It loads for me, but the document at the link is a prior status report, not the most current:

   UNPROCESSED BALLOTS 2006 Gubernatorial General - November 07, 2006
   Updated: 11/08/2006 11:48:39AM

The one I saw last night was this (I copied and pasted the entire content):

   UNPROCESSED BALLOTS 2006 Gubernatorial General  - November 07, 2006
   Updated: 11/10/2006 12:21:51PM

It showed the following status statewide (and a detailed table by county):

   Absentee                   658,642
   Provisionals               102,746
   Damaged                     25,265
                              -------
   Estimated Total            786,653
   Counted                    134,815
                              -------
   Estimated Total Remaining  577,432

There were 17 counties that made up the 577,432 ballots. Additionally, it identified 28 other counties from which they had not yet received an estimate for absentee/provisional/damaged ballots (Los Angeles was one of them). Only 13 counties of the 58 counties were shown as completed. By extrapolating from prior election results, it looked like there would be about 1 million ballots yet to be counted. In 2004, Los Angeles County alone had over 375K of these ballots.

The outstanding ballots explain a lot of the current reports that show a big drop in turnout. Sacramento turnout per the status report would indicate a 14% drop from 2002, but the absentee "unprocessed" report showed 123,966 ballots in that county, yet to be counted. If all included, the turnout would actually be up, not down.

I'll watch the link for a couple days to see if they restore it with a more current document. I do expect to see some rather significant changes in some of the turnout results.

[NormsRevenge]

Oh Good God, we know aRnold isn't a conservative, hell , he is a lukewarm republican at best, a social democrat at worst which is how he has ruled the last year from his throne... he has pandered to special interests, proposed massive increases in spending and borrowing ,, thanks for all the comments, btw. god help us as he is preparing to tackle healthcare,, how the heck do you pay for that without hiking taxes? borrow even more money?

as to his being lucky to get elected as a republican in this state, his Q factor is his biggest asset, it certainly wasn;t his mastery of the issues.

besides he has said it isn't his job to help grow the Republican party, that he says isn't his job. if he is so concerned about all the people of california including the conservative base, why has he done so little to help the conservative cause much less the gop in general, he has criticized a sitting President and his policies in a time of war.. his actions that he has taken are only intended to advance his causes and agenda, if the vetos have included not hiking taxes or vetoing the VLF or gay marriage, those have been more to provide him cover to be able to do what he is really there for, push the Third Way agenda.

He'll get a slap on the back when he fires all the dems on his staff and starts governing for their right for a change,, screw the lefties and dems,, if he's so dman popular , let him do some good for a change instead of running up the debt and paying off his donors under the guise of Rebuilding California.

I hope Tom does run for the House seat. I would vote for him if I wa in that district.

[Navy Patriot]

I'm really getting nervous.

Don't blame you

With Mexico we kicked butt when Santa Ana killed Americans in MEXICO.

With Spain we kicked butt when SOMEONE killed Americans in a Spanish colony.

With Germany we kicked butt when they killed some limeys smuggling munitions on a passenger ship.

With Japan we wussed out until they attacked the homeland. Then we found our ..... and kicked butt in the correct manner again.

With North Korea (China) we just wussed out for 50 plus years.

With Vietnam wussed out after 58,000 brave GI's died to WIN the war militarily for us.

We wussed in Iran.

Grenada and Panama were non wusses, but Reagan could have won sending the San Francisco PD, so national attitude doesn't count.

We wussed in Gulf 1 for another North Korea in the middle east.

We Wussed in Somalia.

We gave air support to the Muslim terrorists in Kosovo.

The direction of the trend is frightening, after another, even more reprehensible, attack on the homeland continent, we have put wuss into turbo overdrive in the race to surrender.