Arnold is Arnold (FR poster 'calcowgirl' mentioned in LA Times blog)

By your line of reasoning Ronald Reagan was a Republican Partisan who achieved nothing.

Close. As a domestic, Republican partisan, Reagan accomplished little positive change. His most prominent domestic legacy was illegal immigration. As an ideologue on the international stage, however, Reagan accomplished profound, political change.

The two great US political leaders within the 20th century, Reagan and Roosevelt, were marked as charismatic ideologues, not partisans. Both would have achieved their individual greatness regardless of party registration.

Maggie beat ya to it!

I already accurately defined Reagan in Post #142 as a " committed conservative ideologue who used the vehicle of party politics to become the head of a nation and among other achievements defeated communism in Eastern Europe."

And then you go and move the goal post. No Reagan would NOT have been at all successful as a democrat, a fact he well understood which is why he left the party. Reagan knew to achieve what he wanted, establish himself as a leader and capture the presidency, he was going to have to do it as a member of the Republican party.

Nice attempt to save your theory though.

... FO advocated that Arnie's distancing himself from the rest of the Republican ticket was a good thing. Hardly a unifying strategy.

Really? For every one that he alienated from the extreme right he picked up a couple in the middle. He won, handily. Had he played to the extreme right he would have been defeated. Perhaps you should ping FO if you insist on stating his opinion for him.

Nice attempt to save your theory though.

What theory?

That profound political change is not accomplished through partisan pursuits or that great leaders are charismatic ideologues, not partisans or that partisan pursuits are a residue of great change, not its motivation?

There is a simple political truth: No partisan system, regardless of efficiency, can withstand the onslaugth of a single, motivated, charismatic ideologue if that system has failed its citizens.

I shudder to think of the damage that narcissistic rogues like Schwarzenegger could do to our constitutional system if they had an ideology beyond their own reflection.

Really? For every one that he alienated from the extreme right he picked up a couple in the middle. He won, handily. Had he played to the extreme right he would have been defeated.

Great for Arnie. A total screw over for the mainstream Republican downticket, which you continue to want to paint as "extreme right wing". How extreme right wing was Dick Mountjoy that Arnold had to practically endorse Feinstein over him? How extreme right wing was Prop 90? How extreme right wing was McC's stance on the Bondage measures that justified Arnie calling him "totally wrong" on the eve of the election? How extreme was Poizner, that even he, elected with a majority, not a plurality of Californians, wasn't worth campaigning with.

When are you going to realize that Schwarzenegger isn't a Republican? He is an independent Populist, running on a co-opted ticket. He doesn't support the President, he doesn't support CA Republican candidates, he doesn't even bother to hire his personal staff from loyal party.

Perhaps you should ping FO if you insist on stating his opinion for him.

I have ceased to ping FO, because FO won't engage in conversation, abandons threads after hitting and running, never answers direct questions, and only posts seminar, preprogrammed propaganda. I strongly suspect FO is a hired PR spinner, because that account's tactics mirror those of hired gun hacks. If you wish to ping that account, feel free.

As to stating his/her/its opinion that he/she/it is only interested in winning and has no core values, I have stated so directly to FO, and challenged he/she/it to state otherwise. The reply I got was to list what my core values were, which I did. I then restated my contention and challenge. FO let the contention stand, so the reasonable conclusion is that FO agrees with it.

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