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 ...
It is fair to criticize Gov. Arnold for being not conservative...But, I don't know about criticizing him for not helping other GOP candidates.
It is difficult to get elected to a statewide office as a Republican in CA.
Debra Bowen beat Republican Bruce McPherson for the Secretary of State job. I did not see any Bowen ads on TV. McPherson was the incumbent. His name was on every piece of election material sent to CA voters. I guess his problem was that there was "Republican" next to his name in the ballot...
Tony Strickland...I heard his radio ad. He has been on radio many times discussing issues. He is a conservative like Tom M. But, Democrat John Chiang beat him for the Controller position. Who is John Chiang? I heard one radio ad, by LA mayor Villaraigosa, supporting Chiang...The label "Democrat" was next to his name in the ballot. That probably was enough...
There was a strong anti-GOP sentiment this year in America. That sentiment did not bypass CA...CA voters were inclined to vote for Democrats. Republicans had to work extra hard to get votes...Only Poizner and Arnold succeeded in doing so.
1994 was a bad year for Dems. Anti-Dem sentiment did hurt CA Dems. That year only two statewide offices were won by Democrats. Gray Davis won the Lt. Gov. job. Kathleen Connell won the Controller job.
In 1994, I do not recall Pete Wilson going around the state campaigning for other GOP candidates...Yet other GOP candidates managed to win.
That year Phil Angelides lost to Republican Matt Fong for the Treasurer position...I think that anti-Dem sentiment helped Matt Fong that year. In 1998, Matt Fong did not run a good campaign against Barbara Boxer...
I like Tom McClintock...I like to listen to him on radio, explaining issues. But, I am not sure if he will ever get elected to a statewide office in CA. 2006 was the 4th time he ran for a statewide office. (Counting 2003 recall)
By the way, Tom lost to Connell in 1994. 1994 was a not good year for Dems, even in CA.
What if Arnold and Tom campaigned together all over the state? Still, the voters would know that Tom is way more conservative than Arnold...I don't think "independent" voters would have gone for Tom in any case...Those "independent" voters did not want anyone "too conservative".
McClintock should consider running for Elton Gallegly's seat in Congress in a few years...Gallegly stated that he is going to serve one more term. By the way, Gallegly's district is a safe GOP district...
Stay at home, vote alternately, vote in vengeance, etc, but other than that I can't argue this point.
These same demonrat agents will continue to use this strategy to neutralize our hopefulness of the governor's true intentions.
The ilk try and characterize the 1% rightmost fringe. Many of this 1% aren't demonratz, they're more like Archie Bunker. Arnie gained a few points from the middle for every point he gave away from the extreme right. When Archie spoke, people laughed, and moved away from the things he said. The ilk are the Carroll O'Conners who pretend to be Archie. We need to listen to people who encourage moving toward our side, as opposed to moving away. Hypocrisy kills us, though. The ilk know this and exploit it.
Ummm...no. The Republican party bosses who controlled the delegates wanted Taft.
The primary vote was a pretty new thing back then, and did not control the delegates as it does today. Roosevelt beat Taft in the 1912 primary vote by about 500,000 votes total, handily kicking Taft's butt even in his home state of Ohio.
But the nomination was given to Taft in the smoky back-rooms because the primary popular vote was non-binding. This is why Roosevelt bolted the party and ran on the 'Bull-Moose' ticket.
When the Republicans made overtures to Roosevelt about supporting him in 1916 if he wouldn't run as a third-party candidate in 1912, he famously commented:
"A homily on honesty, given by a thief who refuses to give back that which he has stolen, does not tend to edification."
*LOL* It is my favorite TR quote (and boy he left us a bushel of them!)
They lost because the heavy Republican districts in Southern Cal. didn't vote in the same percentages as 2000 and 2004. 5 - 10 % less. W.T.H.
And the lies keep propagating.
The Schwarzenegger model has assisted the left in increasing the size of government and the reach of government. The Schwarzenegger model has assisted the left in increasing taxation and shifting authority to a central government. The Schwarzenegger model has assisted the left in increasing government indebtedness and the consequent redistribution of wealth to enhance local, special interest gain.
The Schwarzenegger model has empowered the left while suppressing the right. Whether suppressing the right in the legislslature or suppressing their candidates by assisting their opposition, the Schwarzenegger model is the perfect engine to advance liberalism.
This is perxactly the point I disagree with. Elections are not won from the center, they are won by carrying the middleground. We can't alienate the middleground and at the same time expect them to support us.
However, those reforms were necessary and, had they been enacted in the 1912 time frame, would have been far more moderate than the ones undertaken by FDR during the Depression.
Roosevelt pretty much had the GOP nomination sewn up for 1920 due to his tireless advocacy of Americanism and the Allied cause in WWI, years before Wilson flip-flopped and took us to war.
It was TR who would have been elected in 1920 instead of Harding, had he lived (he died in January 1919 at the age of 60, partly from the accumulation of diseases and injuries suffered during his tumultuous life - his expedition to the Matto Grosso in South America in 1914(I believe) being particularly harmful to his health as he nearly died from tropical fever and lost about 70 pounds at that time - and partly from a broken heart following his youngest son Quentin's death in a dogfight over France six months). earlier).
And, I have always held, that HAD TR been president from 1920-28, history might have been very different, particularly as needed reforms would have been implemented and thus the catastrophy of the Great Depression lessened or avoided altogether.....
Lack of compromise is generally perceived as intolerance. Intolerance is a negative and costs votes from the middle. The appearance of compromise and the skill of negotiation can win the middle.
Good reply. No deceit. Squarely confronting FO's oft repeated lie.
There is no substantial evidence that the right stayed home in California last Tuesday beyond the trend of midterm election malaise. Even loosing conservative candidates and causes received well in excess of the number of votes that conservatives might have generated had they all chosen to participate.
No argument with the conclusion but the premise, Lack of compromise, is debatable. Here's an example of just one such compromise that might arise.
Refusing to approve Schwarzenegger's next budget until he shifts his priorities from social spending to infrastructure spending, in spite of and in the face of the infrastructure bonding just approved is not an unwillingness to compromise. Forcing Schwarzenegger and his Democrat allies to shift priorities, instead of continuing the unsustainable borrowing to increase spending for social programs, will be be well received by the middle ground.
In this example alone there is a ton of compromising that can be done while maintaining the appearance of compromise a mile wide.
If this looming, right/left loggerhead even becomes public, the Schwarzenegger/Nunez team will simply paint Republican legislators as obstructionists. The team will point out the these monies are already appropriated by the recently approved initiatives and that the debt service on these huge borrowings precludes any additional expenditures for this class. Schwarzenegger will reflect that more infrastructure spending will take away from an opportunity to provide expanded heath care and Nunez will accuse the Republicans of shorting our children.
It's true. There was a huge opportunity to clean house that was squandered right after 9/11. The incompetency of the CIA, FBI and other National Security organizations. The complicity of the State Dept always being in favor of negotiating with terrorists.
The RATS played their hand well on an unsuspecting Bush with unity in the public eye and division behind closed doors.
I do remember times Bush attacked even fellow Republicans when they were rightfully calling Dems treasonous. What for? To keep a bipartisan tone in Washington D.C.? We all know Bush campaigned on being a uniter not a divider but things changed more than what I think he realized.
Now with the appointment of Gates I'm really getting nervous. It sounds at this point as though he's in favor of negotiating with the terrorist regimes still in existence in the ME. We can only hope that the Repubs left in Congress will not let his nomination go well and that Rummy has to stay on a lot longer than expected. This will give us time to find a pro-WOT candidate who can swing this back around. I still think that's a possibility. I at least want it to be so. Allowing the status quo of Sadr, Iran and Syria is suicidal.
Saner minds must prevail.
There are still about a million more ballots to be counted in California (more than 10% of the total vote). Riverside and San Bernardino, among others, have been very slow to report. It's too early to make any definitive conclusions.
2000 and 2004 were Presidential elections. 2006 was a midterm. Turnout was pert near average for a midterm election, down about 3.5% from 2002. See the numbers for yourself here. Keep in mind the following: turnout doesn't always include absentee ballots. Don't rely on what the California MSM tells you. Earlier in the thread, I pointed out where the SF Chronic blatantly lied about turnout.
This might interest you. If you estimate #'s in the blue-shaded categories based on history, it says there are about a million more ballots to be counted, in addition to the 577K that they identify.
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/gg2006_unproc_ballot_status.pdf
Yikes... they changed the report at that link. Please disregard.
I'll see if I can find the report I saw last night.
He brags about Ethenol, but a lot of cars (and boats) don't do well with Ethenol.... if what he's said in his speeches is what he really believes, why didn't he announce he is forming a commission which includes the energy and auto companies and PUSH them to do something to become less dependent on Foreign sources of energy?
It's one thing to say "we should" and another to say "I am taking the bull by the horn and forming a commission to push forward"... and with eight years in office, six with GOP in majority, we should have accomplished this.
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