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 ...
Arnold has been Machiavellian -- working with the Dems, giving them lots of small victories, which allowed him to hold the line and veto important stuff: no raising taxes, vetoing universal healthcare, homosexual marriage, vetoing drivers licenses for illegals, passed workman's comp, etc.
National Republicans need to follow his example: talk bipartisanship, give Dems small victories, but hold the line on important stuff, all along telling the people what you are doing, so they understand that you are working hard to be bipartisan, but there are important issues, where the Republicans are right, Dems are wrong, and why.
If Republicans learn these Machiavellian lessons, they will recapture Congress in 2008 and elect a Republican president.
Shut up.
california is hardly a red state
I know that Arnold is an extremely liberal Republican, verging on the Democrat, but he has turned into a master politician and does manage a very difficult state from which so many of the 'Rat leaders hail. In short, you just can't argue with his success and maybe he does have a winning formula. It'd be really stupid to ignore him and his methods.
Don't be a girly-man, Arnold. Seriously, what do you expect from a man married into the Kennedys?
Some relevant Vince Lombardi quotes:
"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. "
"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall. "
"It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it. "
"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. "
"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall. "
I guess you want another "thumping" of the Republicans in 208, President Hillary, and eternal Dem rule, instead of doing what it takes to WIN.
He wants us to terminate the party, how quaint. Courting the center contributed to the current mess.
I could almost go along with the logic if he hadn't gone so liberal on the environmental issues.
The reason we lost is exactly that conservatives didn't turn out, despite the high stakes.
The news said that some 31 million Dems turned out to vote, and only 25 million Republicans.
What works for Arnold, works for Arnold. He has star power.
The environmental stuff is nonenforceable, it's just red meat for the liberals, while he held the line on important stuff.
I know where your going with this, but it reaks to high heaven.
Arnold won because his opponent had no chance of winning. The guy was a socialist moonbat trainwreck. The other option was another Gray Davis with a different name. California was heading in the same economic direction of France ecomonically before Arnie came in and stopped the collapse.
While Arnold had to sell half his soul to get elected again, I would not even begin to compare California's issues with the rest of the US.
Arnold won, but it was only because the person he was running against was aweful in every way.
The GOP will not sit back and take this. It was a wake up call and in 2008, hopefully, they will have the candidates and strategy to regain control.
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