Arnold Schwarzenegger apologizes for being a Republican
The Risk of a "Glamour Pick" for Office
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in bipartisanship | California | girly man | Republicans | RINOs | Schwarzenegger | Spineless cowards | Trojan Horse — Comments (80) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R? Yes, but apologetically) sat down with the L.A. Times yesterday and apologized -- deeply and from the bottom of his heart -- for being a Republican, citing "political inexperience" as his excuse for having espoused semiconservative ideals and principles during his first campaign and in the early years of his Governorship.
The man who rode into the Governor's mansion four years ago on a wave of dissatisfaction with former Governor Gray Davis and the budget crisis he wrought was, by all accounts, sober in his reflection on the last few years in office, telling Times writers and editors "that he now regrets a number of the policies he championed in his early days in office and acknowledges his own rhetoric was at times overheated and naive."
Now, after enough time as a member of the Establishment, the man who once championed himself as the antidote to the woes brought on California by that Establishment is showing the effects of a hard-earned lesson in politics and governance -- that it's easier to go along and to get along than it is to stick to principle and to fight for change -- and has accordingly dropped almost all of the conservative, change-centered, state-saving rhetoric and stated principle that inspired Californians to twice elect him to the state's highest office.
Please do read on.
Four years ago, California was in the midst of experiencing a near-unprecedented level of hardship. Under the watch of Democrat Governor Gray Davis, the state was running an annual budget deficit of $14 billion, and conditions were rapidly worsening for California's employers and citizens, as Davis was pushing through the legislature bills granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and mandating employer-provided health care, just to name two.
Just as California was slipping into a single-state depression from which it seemed that it might never recover, a proverbial knight in shining armor appeared to rescue the state from the growing darkness.
Onto the deck of that foundering ship of state stepped Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, rock star, relative (by marriage) of the Kennedys, speaker of all things good, and potential curer of all ills facing the West's largest state, ready to unseat the current failed Governor and to take over as his competent replacement.
Schwarzenegger said so many of the right things during the recall campaign to unseat and replace Gray Davis. He "labeled many state legislators as inept;" he railed against the "waste, fraud and abuse" that played such a key role in swelling California's state budget -- and working deficit -- to the obscene proportions it had taken on; and he called for repairing the Golden State's failing education system without spending more of the taxpayers' money.
He promised to eliminate dozens of useless state boards and commissions; he promised to cut the funding of state programs and entitlements that had become "bloated and inefficient;" he promised that "never again" would the state of California face a $14 billion deficit, because he would not let the taxpayers' money be handled so irresponsibly and derelictly.
Four years ago, he said so many of the right things.
Now, facing yet another $14 billion annual budget deficit, with far more bills coming due in the next few years than Sacramento will have incoming checks with which to pay them, Governor Schwarzenegger -- in a moment of sober honesty -- recanted the principles on which he ran, and for which the citizens of California elected him in the first place, once and for all.
"I have learned a lot of things where I felt one way before I went into office, and all of a sudden you learn things are not quite this way and you change," he told the Times. "People call it flip-flopping. I would rather flip-flop when I see something is a wrong idea than get stuck with it and stay with it and [keep making] the same mistake."
One of the biggest mistakes he seems to think he made was to conclude that "waste, fraud and abuse" in Government budgeting and spending was a bad enough thing to spend time trying to reform. "If you look at the $14.5 billion we need [to make up the budget deficit for this year alone], you don't even have to look there," he said. "You are not even going to find 1% there."
Another is calling for the voters to replace Establishment lawmakers with principled outsiders of the variety that Schwarzenegger once fancied himself. "I despised the idea of these guys being so locked in and safe and all this in their positions, and staying up in Sacramento doing deals," he told the Times. Having seen the supposed error of his ways on this issue, Schwarzenegger is now working to remedy this "mistake," and has endorsed an initiative on the state's February ballot that would greatly ease term limit restrictions on State Senators and Representatives.
And those purposeless boards and commissions he wanted to cut from the state payroll? "Political inexperience" is how Schwarzenegger is explaining that once-held view. "People just love to hold on to those because it gives them a chance to appoint someone," he said. "Both parties came to me and said, 'You are out of your mind.' Like I was totally insane...I didn't want to stop all the other things I wanted to get done just because of this.
"There were a lot of things when you go in as an outsider that you learn you can't do," he told the Times.
Long gone are the days when this rebel actor-turned-politician, once heralded as the savior of the Golden State, used phrases like "economic girly-men" and challenged his legislative opponents, rather than giving in to them. Now, in the face of yet another impending fiscal disaster for the state whose voters hired him to prevent such things from happening again, Schwarzenegger has found new purpose, and is reaching deep within to find the strength and conviction to maintain and to act on that purpose as committedly and as enthusiastically as he once spoke of maintaining and acting on the principles for which he was originally elected.
This new purpose, and what passes for the principles on which it is based, bears almost no similarity to that character-and-principle-driven ideology to which Schwarzenegger vowed to adhere when he first presented himself for elective office.
The Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that California's voters thought they were getting would not, for example, have responded to looming economic disaster by choosing to "close 48 parks, release tens of thousands of inmates early and roll back or eliminate healthcare programs for the needy" instead of slashing the actual wasteful spending on departments and entitlements which have bloated California's budget to its current size.
The Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that California's voters thought they were getting would not, for another example, have continued to push a $14 billion "universal health care" bill -- built on tax increases and an assessment of crippling financial penalties on businesses large and small -- through the state legislature and onto the November ballot when the budget deficit being faced by his state was of an equally obscene amount.
Most importantly, the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that California's voters thought they were getting would not have called a meeting with the editorial and reportorial staff of the Los Angeles Times for the purpose of apologizing for his misguided adherence -- however brief, and however small -- to even semiconservative principles.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger who is currently serving as Governor of California is not the man the citizens of the Golden State once thought they were putting into office. His actions during the last several months of his term have made this as clear as it needs to be. However, with last week's public renunciation of those principles for which he was elected, and that statement's accompanying request for penance and forgiveness from the Liberal overlords whose supremacy the Governator has finally come to accept, all doubt regarding Schwarzenegger's intentions and loyalties has been removed.
Schwarzenegger's loyalty is no longer to the people who so trustingly put him in office, and his intention is no longer to abide by a single promise or principle he made or espoused during that first run for office in 2004.
With Schwarzenegger, Californians are experiencing the downside of a "glamour pick" for the state's highest office.Though his current term will not expire for another two years, now is not too early for the people of California -- not just the Republicans -- to consider what the Schwarzenegger years hath wrought, and to commit to vetting the next Governor -- and his promised adherence to purpose and principle -- far more closely than was done with the current one.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger apologizes for being a Republican 80 Comments (0 topical, 80 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
He'll be saved by the Real Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate.
I don;t think the CA residents will make any real effort to place any real Republicans in any form. I was out there for about 2 weeks during the run-up to the recall and it was a frenzy for the celebrity of Arnold, not the republicanisim of Arnold.
Besides, the social programs that state allows to continue will never be turned off.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
In a one on one primary between McClintock and Schwarzenegger, McClintock would have won.
Sadly because of the recall we never had that chance.
Exactly. I just doubt the CA republican party will be able to again generate enough interest in a conservative candidate in the near term elections (thru 2012).
There is however a simple truth to my political love affair. It is a casual relationship.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
Hasn't Reagan, after campaigning as a tax cutter, passed the single largest tax hike in the history of any state up to that point (back in 1968, I believe)?
I'm not saying that Arnhuld is the new Reagan or anything of that kind, just pointing out a coincidence. Any factual mistake?
You asked if Reagan did the same. I urge you to read more about the story of Reagan's term in office before you make the comparison again.
I don't want to threadjack though so I leave it at that.
...that "tax cuts" or "tax increases" weren't mentioned once in the OP. Instead, it's a tale of a rock star "consensus candidate" who "grew in office" and is now renouncing his Republican affiliation and principles in all but name.
With Reagan, the transformation was less public, more severe, and entirely opposite.
End.
Another good one.
the way he did with his initiatives, Jeff, you might be looking for Plan B too. Anybody with half a brain who has dealt with Left Coast Lefties and public employee unions would have told him he was out of his mind. Obviously, nobody did, the "purists" called the shots, and he was humiliated. Once bitten, twice not a purist.
In Vino Veritas
But then again, we knew he was a RINO going in. I wonder if this lesson would be applicable to some of our current primary frontrunners? The mind boggles!
I thin he might have fared better with his initiatives if he had proceeded a little slower and with alot more tact.
Enough said.
This is especially true on the union security (dues) issue. There's hardly a union in the Country that could withstand ANY court scrutiny of its dues structure. Since he didn't have a Republican AG, he couldn't have used the State as the vehicle - the best way, so he should have found a friendly non-profit, Evergreen comes readily to mind, to sue several of them in federal court for unconstitutional dues schemes. Use that to tie up their money, then take them on. The 9th Soviet is actually pretty good on issues of individual rights in a union, so you would likely prevail there, don't know about the federal districts in CA. State courts would be all Ds, so there'd be no reason to even try the state courts.
Take a hundred million in dues money out of the iniative election and things might well have been very different.
In Vino Veritas
... it would definitely be you. Or someone exactly like you.
Are you absolutely positively sure you're opposed to cloning? Just asking ...
"political consigliere" is essentially what I did for pretty much the last decade before I retired. Public employees and public employee unions think very clearly when you explain their options with a gun to their head - figuratively, of course.
In Vino Veritas
Is also sorry you are republican
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
No wonder his state is going broke. If he'd put the plans he campaigned on this wouldn't be a problem.
Way to go Jeff, another great tale.
Now let's see, which of the candidates for the GOP nomination is most likely to follow Schwarzenegger? I vote the drive by darling AMNESTY man himself, McCain. It's obvious Schwarzenegger's conversion is so the drive by media won't beat him up for wrecking CA. Today the unemployment news for CA, 6.1% and climbing. Trying to reach Michigan levels and make it a two state recession.
Wasn't Auhmold trying to get the Rs to join him in his "new way"? I think only Giuliani bit on this.
Something to think about, global warming BS in CA is causing companies to relocate to other states. When we implement the same glow-bull warming BS hoax in the US, these very same companies will relocate to where? The jobs the middle class wants, they will have to move to Vietnam to get them, at 1/10 the wages.
and formally drop the R. Thankfully it isn't a lifetime appointment and the people of California can go back to having a Democrat governor screw things up instead of a Lefty R doing the same.
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Two thirds of the world is covered by water,
the other third is covered by Champ Bailey.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
The California voters will reject (il)liberalism next election, and it won't have to be screwed up.
Arnold was never a conservative & always careful to highlight his social liberalism.
I don't think this is what was meant with the old chestnut "when the going gets tough, the tough get going..."
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Molon Labe!
I'm not sure though precisely how much his completion of Davis's term counts, though.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
You mean Tom, can't even win the Lt. Governor, Tom McClintock....yea that's the ticket, that's the thinking that the CA Republican stands for now days.
Not Isa, not someone with a chance of winning, someone who is "pure". No wonder we have a Democratic majority in the Assembly and no state wide elected office Republicans.
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
Explain to us exactly what kind of candidate we need. Define for us precisely what kind of 'moderate' you mean, and what issues we need to 'compromise' on. Tell us what positions prior Republicans have run on that were so unacceptable, that you would discard.
Becuase to be honest, the way you write, you make it sound like we've been running Huckabees, and that you want us to capitulate and start running people more like like Mayor Newsom or something.
I voted for him and not once for Arnold. The talk further down this thread of "moderating" or picking someone who is "electable" is what got us Arnold in the first place! I say stand proudly for what you believe in as an individual and as a party, and win or lose on those principles!
That's how mad I was that the state party endorsed Schwarzenegger. I didn't want to vote in a way that signaled any support for the state party at that point.
during the recall and the Constitution/American Independent (CA branch) Party candidate during Arnold's re-election bid. I voted McClintock as Lt Gov that year and in early returns that night it looked pretty promissing, but eventually the fact that I live in a communist state made itself known. McClintock was the only one worth voting for in that entire election.
I voted for Arnie in the recall but against him when he ran on his own over his stupid behavior on sending CA National Guard troops to the border and his general lousy record on illegal immigration. I voted for the Libertarian guy.
Your comment as to voting for what the party stands for is the subject of another blog which Neil is poking me to write...in progress.
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
They that are with us are more than they that are against us.
If we're unfortunate enough to have one.
"All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Totally off topic, but might lighten things up a bit. Check out this link put out by one of Romeny's sons,
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/18/video-romney-pranks-romney/
Good post: "California Governor Tries Washington Monument Ploy"
Basically, he's exaggerating the pain -- i.e., closing the Washington Monument -- in order to set up tax increases.
A catastrophe. Or katastrophe, as the case may be.
very smart. Tom McClintock dances circles around him.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
If a man a) refers to conservatives as 'right-wing crazies' and b) refers to the impeachment of Bill Clinton as an 'embarassment,' he might not be a reliable Republican.
The state party establishment had both of these facts available before endorsing him in the recall election. They just let their lust for victory trump all principle or even sensible party building.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
...also endorsed him.
Everybody on the R side was hopeful. It was what we wanted to hear. When Franken and crew chimed in we should have been asking why are they happy ?
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I am simply SHOCKED!
(Good story, Jeff)
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“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther
This will end with the balkanization of the state, the dissolution of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, a collapse of California real estate prices.
As a former Californian, I can say that I wasn't too enthusiastic about the Gray Davis recall for this reason: the major problem with California politics has been and continues to be the control over the legislature by the Democrat party.
In national politics and in state politics, people always pay attention to the executive but little attention to the legislative branch.
The recall initiative against Governor Gray Davis was basically a way of letting the Democrats in the legislature off without any accountability. To be accurate, it should be noted that the legislative districts are jerrymandered so that it is difficult to unseat most Democrat legislators (and most Republicans too). But while jerrymandering does make it harder to unseat an incumbent, it doesn't make it impossible, especially when the voters are on the brink of using the recall option against their governor for the first time in memory.
So, living 1,000 miles away from my native state of California, I told my Republican friends who still inhabit the state (yes, some of those still exist) that they would be better off if Gray Davis remained in office. That way the voters could take out their anger on the Democrats in the legislature in the 2004 election and then elect more Republican legislators and a conservative Republican govornor in 2006.
But most conservatives preferred the more realistic option of evicting Davis one year into his second term. And not only that, Republicans decided that Schwartzenegger, not a conservative Republican named Tom McClintock, was the guy who everyone should unite behind.
My attitude at the time was a Leninist "the worse, the better." It was an easy approach for me to take, since I don't live in California and don't own any real estate there. (But most of my relatives still live there and many of them are high-high-high income Democrats.)
So, we took the easiest course and now it's coming back to bite us.
We face a similar situation with the November 2008 elections for the presidency. A Democrat victory would not be the end of the world. The end of the world was November 2006, when the legislative branch was taken over by Democrats. Again, the legislative branch is the branch of government that operates "below radar" so that there is little accountability.
People rarely say, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have mismanaged the economy, even though Congress arguably has more power of the economy than does the president.
Anyone care to wager a guess as to how long the US economy will remain out of recession while in the grip of Pelosi and Reid?
Bottom line is this. Don't overemphasize "electability" for executive offices like Governor and President. Don't overemphasize the idea that we need a Republican to "check" a Democrat legislature. As we have seen with the original George Herbert Walker Bush (who, we were told, we needed to elect to prevent a Democrat Congress from increasing taxes) and Schwarzenegger, that can be overrated.
Why we don't seem to get this in the current presidential situation is beyond me but apparently the same intoxication of 'winning' which overcame Republicans with Ahnuld is afflicting many conservatives when it comes to McCain. It's breathtaking.
"All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
I personally happen to think "pulling an Arnold," if we want to speak of such a thing, is a far greater risk with a President Huckabee or a President Romney than with a President McCain.
I suppose. But McCain has been pulling Arnolds for years, on tax cuts, siding with Democrats on the judicial filibuster, silencing conservative voices via McCain-Feingold (see how Wisconsin Right to Life had to take their case all the way to the US Supreme Court?).
So, given McCain's track record on all of these issues and more (waterboarding, global warming, ANWR), why risk it?
I think all 3 of them stand a pretty good chance of doing it.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
and without steroids. What do you expect from a ham ? A ham as a bodybuilder and then on to Follywood.
So as with Supreme Court Justices who grow, while following the media, Arnold has grown and taken the path of least resistance and the most praise. A sell out to Ego.
Somebody above was right, watch out for McCain. He'll grow like a blimp.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Have you heard *why* he's opposed our lockdown gerrymander from the start? It's because he hates that in the solid R districts we have the temerity to nominate solid mainstream Republicans who oppose things like tax hikes.
He wants a new kind of gerrymander that he hopes will split the party base and water down our nominees, reshaping the party in his image.
He should apologize for telling us he would fight for our state then wimping out.
He has messed up the state more than Davis and it wasn't based on any republican or conservative principals.
He campaigned to the right, then that was it. He went left and never came back and now we get to see how destructive that was to California!
It will be good when Arnold goes back to making movies and gets out of the destroying the state business!
God Bless.
Hugh Hewitt pushed hard for Arnold back during the recall elections, probably in keeping with his "most electable Republican" philosophy. That's worked out great for us here in California. Anyone know who Hewitt's backing for President?
We were swamped with out of staters who loved him. It was a mass delusion unfortunately.
I don't see what the big deal is? We all knew that Arnold was more centric then conservative? And whats wrong with him admitting that he was new to politics. He ran on principles he thought he had but in the end he found out he didn't.
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Heck, he can run as an I for all I care. But Schwarzenneger v. Boxer still sounds fun to me.
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As an I he'd probably caucus with us, but couldn't undercut us by giving bipartisan cover to things.
So, I'm not surprised Arnie is caving, especially with his Kennedy wife around to remind him of what it takes to be adored forever (Tilt left, darling).
Arnie's example makes Reagan's increasing conservatism through the years all the more impressive.
Reagan actually cared deeply about politics... I'm don't think Arnold feels the same way. It's just his biggest role yet. He will play it however he has to play it to boost his own image.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Jesse did the same thing. He ran as a libertarian. Immediately after he won, he surrounded himself with Democrats and let them tell him what he should do.
It just took Arnold a bit longer. Jesse simply had to win (when he clearly wasn't expecting it) in order to freak out and surrender to the Democrats. Arnold had to lose on a few initiatives for this to happen. Neither of them really ever had much of an ideology and both of them placed a higher value on being liked than anything else.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
is as good ia conservative has he is an actor.
He is about the worst actor there ever was.
Thank God he can't run for president.
The Palestinians voted Hamas as their majority party and got what they deserved for doing so. Californians do the same.
In any other state, Arnold would have been a Democrat. If anyone ever thought he was a true Republican, its because they wanted to believe it was so in the worst way.
I say let California pass all the Global Warming laws they can and let their taxpayers foot the bill. The rest of the country can sit back and see how effective their efforts are.
They can pass laws that make autombobile manufacturing so costly that the auto manufacturers refuse to sell cars in California.
They can tax themselves so much to pay for all their social, give away programs until they go bankrupt and hopefully the Federal government won't bail them out.
As with all Democratic causes they are noble as long as they can be funded with other people's money. The wealthy hollywood stars are always clamoring that Uncle Sugar should be paying for all their bleeding heard programs but you rarely see them step forward offering their millions as seed money.
Not a comparison between terrorists and Dems. Rather, a comparison of using democracy correctly by voting and living with the results of your vote.
It may not have been your intent, but it's what you said. Just the same as if you'd, say, compared Schwarzenegger's unusual rise to power with Hitler's unusual rise to power.
It's just not appropriate.
I didn't use the word terrorist. You did. Now you bring Hitler into the picture. You are reading things into my post that aren't there.
As far as I know, Hamas is the party duly elected by its constituents whether we like it or not. I guess Democracy can be a double edged sword. The same goes for California. If they want to vote for tax and spend liberals who will keep them feeding at the government trough, they'll have to live with the results.
When following the news during the Palestinian elections, I didn't see the slogan "Vote for Hamas - your local terrorist party".
The point is, you took the liberty to read way more into the post then was there and then construe it in terms contrary to its meaning.
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Conservatism is about empowering people to do the work, not the government!
Raise Taxes Arnold. Come on, I dare ya.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle