Posted on 06/17/2006 9:24:16 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
With all the talk about the former red state, Republican state, California, becoming a blue state -- which is not quite as true as some think -- there is someone talking about it becoming a purple state. That is California Republican Party chairman Duf Sundheim, who talked about his hopes for California during last week’s bus tour kicking off Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign against Democratic challenger Phil Angelides.
The Silicon Valley lawyer came on a few years ago to put a moderate face on the party, whose apparatus was traditionally viewed as right wing and increasingly out of step with a more Democratic-skewing state. Billionaire investment banker Gerald Parsky, President Bush’s man in California, and then state Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte, were part of a package deal of sophisticated overseers for the party.
Then Arnold Schwarzenegger came along. The action movie superstar and former Mr. Universe ran for governor years before his anticipated 2006, winning a landslide victory in the dramatic 2003 recall election which ended the governorship of twice-elected Democrat Gray Davis.
For more than a year, as Sundheim tells it, he was ecstatic. Schwarzenegger, who immediately became the most important Republican in California, notwithstanding his maverick views and less than fantastic relationship with President George W. Bush -- his great friend in Kennebunkport, which he once frequented, was the first President Bush, who made him chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness -- was a great success, achieving record levels of popularity.
But then things changed last year. “That was difficult,” says Sundheim of the ill-fated “Year of Reform,” in which the popular movie star governor morphed into a villain in his losing battle with iconic public employees over his special election agenda of four initiatives.
This year, things have been “better,” as he put it, but more complex for Sundheim.
Contrary to the hopes of last year’s victorious Democrats, Schwarzenegger has been in major recovery mode for months. But in recovering his political fortunees, the governor made moves that confounded and infuriated activists from the conservative base of the party. He hired a lifelong Democrat -- a former top aide to recalled Governor Gray Davis and Democratic gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides, a lesbian married on Maui, no less -- as his chief of staff.
And while he brought on a new political team of hardball players from the Bush operation, they, too, were complicit in his move to the left as he embraced and championed the biggest public works spending program in California’s history.
Sundheim bore the brunt of the attendant rebellions. With his help, and the efficient work of Schwarzenegger’s new political team, the anti-Arnold right-wing revolt at last spring’s state Republican convention in Sundheim’s Silicon Valley home base proved to be much ado about not much.
So now, with the governor running against the Democrat most Republicans preferred as his opponent, Sundheim can dream again about the future. Well, as much as any state party chairman can dream about the future when his party’s incumbent president has the second lowest approval rating in California of any president in the history of polling.
Sundheim hopes, not for a red state future for California, for that is a pipe dream given the state’s emerging demographics, but for a purple state future, a melding of red and blue.
It seems a realistic hope, if not an entirely likely scenario, with Democrats in power proving repeatedly to overreach themselves as they did in the run-up to the recall of Gray Davis. And in Schwarzenegger, Sundheim has, as he puts it, his purple “prototype.”
But who is there on the horizon for Republicans besides the once biggest movie star on the planet? If there was ever a one-off, Arnold Schwarzenegger is it.
Indeed, the governor, who speaks often of change and crossing boundaries in politics, did little in the primary just past to promote a purple state future for his beloved “golden dream by the sea.”
Schwarzenegger, perhaps mindful of the need to avoid further alienating conservatives further, didn’t intervene in the primary to help his allies Abel Maldonado, who very narrowly lost the Republican primary for state controller, and Keith Richman, who lost the primary for state treasurer.
Why not? Sundheim won’t say.
Schwarzenegger did, however, prior to the primary, pluck two strong prospects for November from relative obscurity.
He made Bruce McPherson the incumbent secretary of state when he appointed him to replace Democrat Kevin Shelley, who was forced to resign under fire following several revelations about his mismanagement of the office. The former state senator and Santa Cruz newspaper publisher, the party’s 2002 nominee for lieutenant governor, has acquitted himself well in office and has a decent chance to beat the Democratic nominee, LA area state Senator Debra Bowen, an impressive individual in her own right.
He also made Steve Poizner a major figure in the party. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur ran a close race in an absolutely Democratic district for the state Assembly, spending $6 million from his personal fortune in the process. Schwarzenegger, and Sundheim, came to regard the brainy but rather modest Poizner as the saving grace of Schwarzenegger’s otherwise wholly unsuccessful intervention in the legislative races of 2004. So pleased with Poizner was the governor that he appointed him to the Public Utilities Commission. Notwithstanding the fact that Poizner had so many investments in telecommunications and other related high tech ventures that he could not possibly avoid running afoul of state conflict of interest regulations without divesting himself of much of his investment portfolio.
Although this fact was obvious, neither the governor’s aides nor Sundheim impressed this on Schwarzenegger, so happy was he about having found Poizner. Finally, reality dawned courtesy of Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, who informed Arnold that he couldn’t possibly confirm the otherwise well-qualified Poizner as a member of the PUC. Now Poizner is the Republican nominee for insurance commissioner against Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall rival, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante.
After an unexpectedly topsy-turvy time Sundheim pronounces himself satisfied and hopeful about the fall election. Although most of the Republican nominees are conventional types whose prospects are uncertain at best, the party seems poised to make some more gains beyond its shutout status after the last general election four years ago.
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Uh, time to take this one back to the lab, Duf.
"time to take this one back to the lab, Duf."
Time to put Sundheim, Arnold, and Parsky out for trash collection!
Bush is doing everything he can to make sure that a conservative doesn't win!
"Time to put Sundheim, Arnold, and Parsky out for trash collection!"
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I guess you are really yearning for 8 years of Angelides.
www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CA&last=poizner
Poizner, Stephen Gore, Al (D) Gore 2000 Inc $1,000.00 02/22/00 Poizner, Stephen L Democratic National Committee (D) $10,000.00 10/02/00 Poizner, Steve Kerry, John F (D) Kerry Committee $1,000.00 02/15/01 Poizner, Steve Kerry, John F (D) Kerry Committee $1,000.00 02/15/01 Poizner, Steve Mr. Bush, George W (R) Bush-Cheney '04 (Primary) Inc $2,000.00 06/30/03 Poizner, Steve Kobach, Kris (R) Kobach For Congress $2,000.00 07/31/03 Poizner, Steve Mr. The Wish List $1,000.00 04/08/04 Poizner, Steve California Republican Party/Victory 2006 (R) $9,952.00 06/07/05 Poizner, Steve Santa Clara County Republican Party(Fed) (R) $1,000.00 02/03/06
Can anybody describe what the Platform of this "Purple Party" would actually say?
Other than "We stand for nothing", "No principle is worth fighting for", "We will surrender, if the price is right", and a few others of similar vein, I cannot fathom what a Purple Party might champion as their cause.
They've done more to destroy the party than anyone in my lifetime.
Leaving them for the trash collector is too kind.
That's IT!!! I can just hear 'em now yellin "COME ON DOWN!"
I suppose purple is supposed to be a color that signifies "Compassionate Conservatism," right? Include me OUT!!! I'll take bright RED "Considerate Conservatism" every time, thank you very much!!! (I used to prefer "true blue" conservatism till the MSM got the whole deal all CONvoluted in the 2000 election map)
You know, it's bad enough when the leftists and MSM start stealing the significant stuff, but when your own Party starts doing it after driving you out in disgust... This is all getting pretty ridiculous!!!
Make it STOP!!! CalCowGirl... Make it STOP!!! (or maybe I should act like Dubya and say "bring it on!")(jerking my chicken neck while chorteling)(snort!)
How 'bout abortion and teacher unions ? These guys merely champion Democrat causes and positions, maintaining they can manage them "better." Nothing Conservative whatsoever about these cretins.
Duf 'Barney' Sundheim
Nice green belly, btw.. coincidence? ;-)
I dont like the idea of a Parsky/Poinzer/Schwartzenegger purple party. My idea of a purple party is hard core fiscal conservatism, individual freedom with a libertine sensiblity. Problem is the purple PPS republican squad do neither.
ROFL! I think you're on to something!
I've been thinking about this Purple Platform thingie. Here's a few:
• We're not for Big Government or Smaller Government; we're for whatever Government fills our elitist needs at the time.
• Sometimes we defend property rights; sometimes we don't.
• We are pro-life and pro-choice (please don't press for an explanation)
• We're not for war or for peace, although we think War and Peace is a pretty impressive looking book to put in our library (on the bookcase next to the portrait of Rockefeller and FDR).
Agreed. I haven't seen any party representing any level of fiscal conservatism.
Buh-bye, California.
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