I fear that a long divided race, in which the McC/Schw camps campaign against each other day after day, week after week, could have a very bad result.Hey, you supposed, fake conservative sell-out RINO! :o)Look at FR; the McC fans tend to greet EVERY conservative syllable Schw or an aide speaks with mocking and derision. They rip his supporters as sell-outs, RINO's, compromisers.
I'm not even full-out, but even for making a case for Schw, I've been called a supposed, fake conservative -- which is hilarious to anyone who knows me at all...
As I posted on another thread:
As difficult as this may be to believe, there is actually a world OUTSIDE of Free Republic, in in THAT world, Arnold has not yet even BEGUN to soar - up, up, UP...Check out the "reaction of the masses" at Arnold's FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE since his announcement as a candidate for Governor - in the (relatively) conservative Orange County city of Huntington Beach:
Schwarzenegger Gets Hero's Welcome in Surf City
Reuters ^ | 8/22/03 | Dan Whitcomb
Posted on 08/22/2003 7:01 PM PDT by kattracks
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger received a hero's welcome in this beach town on Friday, thrilling hundreds of swimsuit-clad admirers and winning endorsements for his gubernatorial bid from a Republican congressman and key fund-raisers.
Wading into throngs of cheering supporters in Southern California's Huntington Beach -- known as Surf City, California -- Schwarzenegger made like a veteran politician, shaking hands, kissing babies and posing for photographs.
He ducked into two restaurants and a surf shop, saying he had been talking to the owners about "the burden they go through every day running a business in California."
"Wait until October 7, we're going to turn this mess around," the candidate said, referring to the date of the recall election.
A Los Angeles Times Poll released on Friday showed voters were nearly evenly split on whether to recall California Gov. Gray Davis, who is a Democrat.
Schwarzenegger is the front-running Republican candidate.
U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican who strolled down Main Street with Schwarzenegger, said he endorsed the actor because Schwarzenegger was the strongest candidate, and his beliefs most closely mirrored those of Rohrabacher.
California Republicans, however, have begun to fret that with three other well-known conservatives in the race, the party may be too fragmented to win the governor's seat and could hand the race to leading Democrat, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
The influential Lincoln Club of Orange County, a Republican fund-raising organization, called on Republican challengers Bill Simon, Peter Ueberroth and Tom McClintock to drop out.
"Each is a noble and principled man and would distinguish the Republican Party," said club President Tracy Price. "However, in our view, they can't win. They can only spoil our chances of electing a Republican governor and turning the state around."
PARTY POLITICS AND POLLS
Schwarzenegger refused to be drawn into party politics, saying each politician had to make his or her own decision.
"They are all people I respect. They are all Republicans. They work very hard and at one point or another they have to make a decision. I can't make it for them," he said.
But when pressed, he added: "Obviously, mathematically speaking, it's wiser to only have one candidate."
Recent polls have consistently shown Davis would likely lose his seat and be replaced by either Schwarzenegger or Bustamante.
In Friday's Los Angeles Times poll of 1,351 registered voters, 50 percent of respondents supported the recall, while 45 percent opposed it and 5 percent were undecided. Seventy-two percent said they disapproved of Davis' performance.
Meanwhile, Bustamante picked up endorsements from the state's Democratic congressional delegation and two labor unions. Democratic leaders initially tried to discourage party members from challenging Davis, but switched tactics when it appeared Davis was in trouble.
The governor's wife, Sharon Davis, told CNN on Friday that the change in tactics did not indicate a loss of support for her embattled husband.
"They are all united in one point and that is 'no' on the recall," she said. "It makes a lot of sense what the Democrats are doing, they want a Democratic governor."
At an appearance with Latino business leaders in San Diego, Davis urged voters to reject the recall, calling it "undemocratic." (Additional reporting by Gina Keating)
CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread
The Sacramento Bee, as you know, is basically a FAX machine for the DNC. But its even-handed political commentator Daniel Weintraub (Insider -- you know, your man Hewitt's bud) said this of that meeting in his blog:
I was there by 9 a.m. for the 12:30 pm event on Main Street, near the Huntington Beach Pier, and the sidewalks were already buzzing. By noon the place was a madhouse. A crowd of a couple hundred people stood outside a restaurant where he was coming to speak to a group of local business owners, while several dozen more onlookers leaned from balconies overhead. The throng spilled out into the cross street, which the police eventually blocked off to auto traffic. And a receiving line two or three deep on the sidewalk stretched several hundred feet down Main Street toward a store into which Arnold was headed. The crowd waited for over an hour under a hot midday sun to get a glimpse of him. As Arnold made that walk, the crush of reporters, fans and gawkers was overwhelming. A couple of small children who got in the way were nearly trampled. The closest thing to which I can compare it was the mosh pit at the Van’s Warped Tour punk concert I attended with my son a few weeks ago. People were screaming for Arnold, reaching out to touch him, seeking (and getting) autographs. My favorite was this one "The teachers are for you, Arnold! The teachers are for you!" (What, they didn't get the word from the CTA?) Is this the best way to choose a governor? Not if you want to see the line items in the budget he might propose next January. But I talked to eight or ten local residents who had wandered onto the event and was struck by how little they cared about his specific policies. And it wasn’t just that they were star-struck. They were attracted to Arnold’s passion, his optimism, his heart, his take-charge attitude. They have a sense that things are going downhill in California, and they don’t want to hear excuses. They don’t want to hear that it was the private energy generators or the economy or the Bush Administration. They want to hear someone tell them that he can make it right again. That’s what they seem to be hearing from Arnold. This was conservative Republican country, so it wasn’t a surprise that they were overwhelmingly in favor of the recall. But it was something of a surprise that they were so comfortable with Arnold. I didn’t hear anything about Prop. 13 or abortion or gay rights. I didn’t hear much pining for a “real Republican.” If this was any indication, Arnold is going to win over much of the Republican base. And he can keep wooing the center.But it is not, as Paul Harvey would say, the end of the story. The scene was incredible. I have been following candidates for governor in this state since 1986, and there simply has never been anything like this, or even close. The Schwarzenegger campaign kept the details about this event under wraps until early this morning to keep down the size of the crowd. A political campaign trying to keep down a crowd? The Orange County Register this morning carried a listing of where all the major candidates were appearing today – but it didn’t include Arnold coming to their readers’ own backyard. It didn’t matter.
I'm increasingly confident that Schw can take it -- or California deserves its own doom. Well, I already know it does; still, on rare occasions, the California electorate has a passing flash of sanity. I'm hoping this will be one of those rare occasions.
Your sellout FRiend,
Dan