McClintock: 'In the race to the finish line'

CNN ^ | August 26, 2003 | CNN

[Recourse]

WASHINGTON (CNN) --With one recent poll showing actor Arnold Schwarzenegger falling behind Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in California's gubernatorial recall race, some top Republicans are urging other GOP candidates to drop out of the race.

Businessman Bill Simon, the GOP nominee against Gov. Gray Davis last year, dropped out over the weekend. But Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock says he's in the race for good. McClintock, in Sacramento, California, spoke with CNN's Judy Woodruff on Tuesday. The following is an edited transcript.

[Registered]

Poll numbers don't lie, TM is a polling basketcase. Yes, he does carry the core of the staunch Republicans, and that may be the SMALL difference between an Arnold win or a Dem win. This is simply commonsense and logic. In my puritan heart, I may not believe Arnold best represents my conservative ideology, but using my brain, I can't even in the slightesf picture a scenario where TM could pull this off and win this thing. So, I recommend CA voters hold their noses, vote for Arnold and stop the Dems from Cruz'n into the Governor's mansion.

[Cultural Jihad]

However, you are a newbie, you don't live in this state, you haven't been respectful, and the high expectations for discussion is a crock.

Oh. He's a student at the Univerity of Texas?!

[Those_Crazy_Liberals]

"Furthermore, for a person who is Pro-Life and Pro-Guns, you sure have an ax to grind with Tom McClintock."

Less damage will be done for the unborn and gun owners if Arnold is elected than if Busty is. And those are the only two candidates in the race that can win.

[cyncooper]

Did you really have a good opinion of him, or are you using sarcasm?

Yes, I had a good opinion of him from what I'd read of his positions. Did not think he has ever looked poised to surge or even faintly look viable as the winner, but I didn't dislike him. This interview made me take a dislike to him.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Halarious, Jihad.

[LdSentinal]

Gee, on one hand I hear this - on the other I hear he even got more votes than Simon.

Well, that's one score for the pro-MClintock folks. Gray Davis was not all that popular and another Republican candidate could have won -- or made the race much closer. Still, Tom McClintock got more votes than Bill Simon even though his opponent did not have high negative ratings as Gravy Davis. Of course, the comptroller (or is it comtroller?) race was an open seat.

It's never Tom's fault is it? If he got MORE votes than Simon, how was Simon his reason for losing?

Gray Davis: 3,533,490 (47.26%)
Bill Simon: 3,169,801 (42.40%)

That's a pretty pathetic turnout overall, but for Republicans it was ridiculously low. Simon's extremely lousy campaign created this scenario since he's heading the Republican ticket and cost McClintock a victory.

[A CA Guy]

Never could happen at this time, McC is unknown through most of the state.
If he doesn't become McSpoiler in this race he as a chance another day. If he doesn't exit after the debate on the 17th, he has no political future in CA IMO except for in his local area.

[w_over_w]

I thought you would. Well, gotta go . . . hang in there tough lady!

[Torie]

McClintock need not pull out until close to the end, unless he spends his money trashing Arnold. McClintock is really needed in the debates, because he will shread, totally shread the opposition, and with credibility reveal just how horrific the fiscal situation is in California, and although the press isn't reporting it, it is horrific (and almost certainly in the short term will require tax increases until the cold shower reforms kick in, and/or in part and only part, absent another stock market bubble, the Bush economy recovery program really takes hold). Arnold could say I agree with you, you know more about the budget than I do, and you will be on my speed dial when I am governor.

[risk]

Californians want Davis and the Democrats to change radically or leave, and neither Davis or Bustamante are doing either, and Arnold is doing a good imitation of both, ie a run of the mill 'tax' Democrat.

Thank you. Bustamante sealed his fate when he talked about tough love and raising taxes. He doesn't have half the chance the leftist California press is giving him!

I'm behind the best Republican I know today. That may change in 3-4 weeks.

[Registered]

That image is meant to segment off the small percentage of voters that would allow the GOP to win and stop Cruz from winning.

Is that your intent?

[George W. Bush]

McC has already shown he has no statewide appeal.

Huh? He came closest of any Republican to winning a statewide office just last year. He polled about 48% in a general election. I think he ran for comptroller or something ilke that.

[cyncooper]

I find it strange that Art Torres and Jerry Brown are boosting McClintock

That IS strange.

[Cathryn Crawford]

This interview made me take a dislike to him.

Don't let one interview form your complete opinion. At least read two. :-)

[vbmoneyspender]

It is kind of pointless discussing things with the poster from Congo. Of all the Republicans on the ballot last year, McClintock did the best -- losing to Westly by about 20,000 votes out of 7 million that were cast for Controller. And given that Democrats have a significant registration advantage in California, McClintock's vote total in 2002 proves that he has at least some appeal to voters who are not registered Republicans.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Of course not.

However, although it may be cloaked in semi-funny satire, it does make an excellent point.

I.E. - Arnold's not a conservative.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Not you, too!

I'm weeping now. Really.

[sruleoflaw]

It's always great to hear from the Rockefeller wing of the GOP -- alive and well on FreeRepublic. How many of you actually live in California? As a native Californian, I am so tired of the Rockefeller wing of the GOP -- and here they are: Recourse, Bunnyslippers, Grand Old Partisan, Hildy, Tempst Thune_Banquo

How do you feel about your boy Arnold's refusal to take a no tax hike pledge?

How do you feel about a man who said he was ashamed of the GOP for impeaching wee Willie Clinton and would never forgive the Republican Party?

How do you feel about a man who led the fight for a $455 million government babysitting program?

Anyone who can't see that the Schwarzenegger-McClintock fight is a re-run of the Rockefeller-Goldwater fight in the GOP from the 1960's has little understanding of history or politics.

EVEN THE DEMOCRATS THINK ARNOLD WINNING IS A GREAT IDEA. HERE IS A COMMENT FROM ONE. How do you explain this?

Published by the Sacramento Bee, August 14, 2003



Schwarzenegger: Can it be spelled ‘Rockefeller’?

By Matthew Miller

Tribune Media Services

I know, I know - it's hard to imagine that a campaign launched with a reference to a bikini wax can end up elevating political discourse. But the truth is that Arnold Schwarzenegger has an arguably historic chance to transform the Republican Party and thereby shift America's political center of gravity in ways that would paradoxically be good for Democratic goals and great for the country.

This opportunity exists because Arnold is uniquely positioned, and from everything we know temperamentally inclined, to rehabilitate the status and sex appeal of Rockefeller Republicanism. So while he's still a blank slate on policy, let me make the case, in hopes that he and Maria Shriver can be persuaded that this is Arnold's highest use and best destiny.

At the national level, the purging of moderate, problem-solving GOP leaders in favor of zealots for whom tax cuts favoring the wealthy are always the first priority of public life has been a central factor in our political system's inability to address serious domestic problems, from the uninsured to urban teacher quality to countless other issues.

Colin Powell, of course, was the great hope for reviving Rockefeller Republicanism a few years back. But he didn't go for the brass ring.

Suddenly, overnight, Arnold is the one with the wattage and the megaphone to swing the party in the direction he chooses.

For now, we have to read the tea leaves, but the signs are all promising. Arnold can't be a Newt Gingrich fan. He can't be a Tom Delay fan. He's surely a Colin Powell fan. And you can't be married to Maria Shriver and spend all that time in Hyannisport and be a continuous-tax-cuts-for-the-rich monomaniac.

Arnold apparently once told a friend that "he was going to leave the party over what the Republicans did to Clinton" with impeachment - a sign of intelligence and good sense if ever there was one. His investment manager says "Arnold likes paying taxes" - roughly $20 million on $57 million in income in 2000 and 2001 - because it affirms he's making lots of money. And to one of the questions that he did manage to hear Matt Lauer ask the other day, Arnold replied that children should have a "first call" on our resources.

Arnold is said to be getting economic policy advice from Warren Buffett, the Democratic billionaire who's spoken out against President Bush's dividend tax relief and drive to repeal the estate tax.

True, Arnold is also said to be a Milton Friedman admirer. But I'm a Milton Friedman admirer myself, and I'm a liberal 180-pound weakling! You can admire a thinker without thinking that he is invariably the best guide to the policy challenges we face in 2003.

The real key - unknowable at this writing - is Arnold's view of George W. Bush and his domestic priorities. Bush's "compassionate" persona is appealing. But you have to follow policy relatively closely - or at least listen to advisers or to a wife who does - to understand that Bush's "compassion" is a marketing hoax, belied entirely by his budget priorities.

The key to Arnold's ability to transform the GOP and the national debate would be for Arnold to repudiate Bush's tax cuts as senselessly favoring people like himself when the resources should be used for more pressing national needs.

Arnold would have unique standing to say, "You know, my campaign is about California, but I've saved $X million already from the Bush tax cuts, and there's nothing wrong with asking someone like me to have paid the few percent more I paid at the end of Clinton administration - especially when it helps keep the budget in balance and funds programs for poor children."

Importantly, this view is entirely consistent with a call to scrap crazy regulations that hurt California's business climate.

This one move, because of the earthquake and discussion it would generate, would at a stroke reclaim the center of political debate from the rightward lurch that GOP zealotry and Democratic timidity have created. It could alter the dynamics of the presidential race in 2004, and policy outcomes for years afterward.

Will Arnold do it? We'll know soon enough. But as he and Maria and their team debate where he should come down, his potential power for good here is enormous. Democrats may want to hold some of their fire against a recall that obviously never should have happened until all of us learn Arnold's choice.

(Matthew Miller's e-mail address is mattino@worldnet.att.net. He is author of the upcoming book "The 2 Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love," in bookstores nationwide this September.

© 2003 MATTHEW MILLER

DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I thought you would. Well, gotta go . . . hang in there tough lady!

Thanks. See you later.

[risk]

I totally agree. I don't think it's wise for either candidate to announce that intention yet, however.