Posted on 03/01/2006 10:13:19 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - After more than two years as California's governor, including a disastrous 2005 that pummeled his bipartisan image and approval ratings, Arnold Schwarzenegger's novelty and luster on the national political stage is wearing off.
With it, he also may be losing some of his clout.
Treated like a rock star when he traveled to Washington and New York during his first year and a half in office, Schwarzenegger seemed to have lost some of his glitz this week at a gathering of America's governors.
The battalions of reporters and photographers that used to track Schwarzenegger's every move dwindled to a handful this week. Two years ago, he was a top attraction at the annual fundraiser for Republican governors, posing for pictures with donors. This year, he didn't even attend.
And when Schwarzenegger requested a sit-down with President Bush to discuss emergency funding to repair Sacramento River levees, he got White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card instead.
Schwarzenegger's standing fell in California last year after the ill-fated special election that saw voters defeat all four of his ballot initiatives. So he arrived in Washington this week with diminished credentials.
``People are aware of the difficulty he has encountered within the state, and that has tarnished his national reputation,'' said Darrell West, a Brown University political scientist who has studied celebrity politicians.
It also may not have helped that Schwarzenegger started the trip by announcing on national TV Sunday that he wasn't a Bush Republican, but an ``Arnold Republican'' -- not the best way to curry favor with the White House.
He returned to California on Tuesday to a new Field Poll showing his approval rating at 40 percent -- up from 37 percent in October, but a far cry from his 65 percent rating in 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
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More like a Bilderberg Republican if ya ask me.
He is no Reagan!!!!!
IMHO he never was one.
Nor is the Murky Nuz much of a paper.
The Least this putz should do is go to some fundraisers to benefit the RGA or RNC or something.
The last thing the repubbies need is another liberal, they are ate up with them as it is, all trying to out leftist the rat party.
I'm sorry Arnold's had such a politically turbulent time and some truly awful advice. I imagine there's still a chance he can recover and be reelected. It really comes down to giving Democrats a solid lock on the state with their nominee becoming governor or having opportunities to hold them at bay with Arnold. As I see it, it doesn't matter what Republican is in power, the unions will treat him (or her) just as nastily as they've treated Arnold.
And as I've mentioned elsewhere, Labor're replicating their 2005 assault locally locally now with attacks on the San Diego mayor for suggesting voters be able to decide if public employees should have to compete with the private sector for providing services in an effort to avoid bankruptcy due to out of control pensions.
Will conservatives stay home, vote, or move out of state?
Probably correct but the effectiveness of their assault would be another matter.
In round one, the Austrian pulled a bonehead move. He attacked the union rank and file instead of the institution or its leadership. The Austrian delivered a gift from the gods to union leadership and they used it effectively.
Many pundits attribute the Austrian's mistake to political amateurism. I don't. I attribute it to the Austrian's core beliefs in the fraternal goodness of the union movement. When his large donors demanded he attack, he couldn't bring himself to lash out at the institution. Instead, he lashed out at teachers and nurses waving ad homenim venom in his face. From his perspective the institutional concept was righteous, but the evil folks directly confronting him, who had corrupted the tradition, were the problem.
A right thinking conservative would have embraced the mob and engaged them. A right thinking conservative would have listened to their grievances and consoled them, pointing out how good, reasonable, hardworking folks had been snookered by Barbara Kerr into becoming a political tool benefiting the union management and not the rank and file.
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