Posted on 10/25/2007 7:24:08 PM PDT by SmithL
ESCONDIDO, Calif., Oct. 25 — One is the most powerful Republican in the country. The other is among the most popular. But it took an inferno in Southern California to thaw the ice between President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It is no secret in California or Washington that the two have never been buddy-buddy, dating back to when Mr. Schwarzenegger was a top fitness adviser to Mr. Bush’s father. Mr. Bush thought little of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s first bid for governor and did not endorse him.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has taken jabs at the president on such issues as climate change, stem cell research and Republican fund-raising. Though he campaigned for Mr. Bush’s re-election in 2004 in the important swing state of Ohio, Mr. Schwarzenegger snubbed Mr. Bush last year, refusing to appear with him at the Reagan Presidential Library.
“Not hanging-out pals,” Mr. Schwarzenegger once said, describing their relationship.
But they have, for the moment, become political allies. With wildfires blazing across the southern part of the California, Mr. Bush made a quick visit here Thursday, viewing the scarred landscape by helicopter, delivering a pep talk to emergency responders and promising Californians, “We’re not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.”
Mr. Schwarzenegger was there every step of the way, from the moment Mr. Bush stepped off Air Force One, where they clapped one another on the shoulder like football teammates, through the canyon neighborhood of Rancho Bernardo, where they picked their way through charred ruins. There, they stood on a hillside, Mr. Bush’s arm draped around a woman whose home had been leveled, and lavished each another with praise.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If they could both leave office in January 2009, it’d be fine by me.. ;-)
The girly-man of politics and faux-conservative have struck up a friendship.
Who would have guessed?
LLS
Well not quite. Actually, Arnold is the only guy who can take out Boxer. Waffling sometimes or not, that is worth my vote. Boxer is part of the Anti-Christ world system.LOL
Are you registered as a Republican in California today? just curious.
not much of a choice or difference if they both take ya over the cliff, jmo.
“If they could both leave office in January 2009, it’d be fine by me.. ;-)”
On the contrary, if two Republicans can play nice together and make the lefties out to be whack jobs, maybe some Congressman from California can win the primary there.
Duncan Hunter to the green room please.
if two Republicans can play nice together and make the lefties out to be whack jobs
..
That would take one heck of a PR effort... and ‘playing nice’ is only gonna work until the President is out of earshot with this loon of a leftie. he isn’t the solution, he is part of the problem. jmo.
and you really think the Gub would endorse Duncan? lolol
On this issue it was inevitable that they would find common ground. I don’t know if anyone heard the clip of Arnold going off on a reporter who was trying to get him to “Do a Blanco” but Arnold was not about to start whining and blaming the feds.
Ethics aside, to blame the administration would be to label himself incompetent and helpless and he has hardly been that. Furthermore, as the article makes plain, the best way of getting aid bucks out of the feds is to make nice with them. Politics 101?
Even Skeletor can’t order him to cut his own throat.
The Arnie for Prez fan club is rekindling.
I saw talking heads rah-rah-ing for him because he looked so “presidential” and saying we should do away with the citizenship reqmt.
Arnold in the Senate? God help us!
Send him back to Austria.
Why am I not surprised?
I really liked that all-star press conference yesterday. Arnold had all the top officials lined up, singing each other’s praises in a show of professional collegiality.
I also heard Lt. Governor Garamendi praising the FEMA response and wondered how long it will be before he will be able to sit comfortably after whatever going-over Arnold must have given him in his “smoking-tent.”
Yes, after all, he hired all those Blackwater people and they started the fires...
“and you really think the Gub would endorse Duncan? lolol”
No I don’t. I think the people of California will after learning what a bunch of lunatics were saying on the 5 o’clock news about this fire.
Moderates are starting to wake up.
I think the people of California will after learning what a bunch of lunatics were saying on the 5 o’clock news about this fire.
Moderates are starting to wake up.
—
I flirt with that idea occasionally... that folks like the ‘moderate’ and indies will wake up... so egregious will the behaviour of the left be perceived. but then considering the educational institutions that produced a lot of them, I am the one who wakes up, as do many here, to bear witness to a continued slide downhill as a state and a nation.. and the great many who don’t seem to care, no matter how passionate the proof or solid the evidence that the path we are on only leads to ruin.
Huh?
He did a decent job with the fires. But I take offense to the folks trying to tout him as a great Republican Senator--the Senate being a place where he can take his whacked out Kennedy agenda and continue on with the Schwarzen-bulldozer, advancing leftist policies while calling it "post partisanship" and destroying the Republican Party at the same time. I can't imagine that you are actually happy about the condition of this state--our fiscal affairs are much worse than before he came in office despite an economic boom. He has championed Al Gore and the UN's environmental policies along with leading the charge into the economically destructive Global Warming regulation. His socialist land-use crowd is the death knell of private property rights. He's appointed leftists to high posts and judgships. He has accepted almost every whacked out piece of legislation advancing the homosexual agenda. Our deficits have grown while doubling the debt. (Do I really need to go on?).
As to the fire, there is much debate on who did what, right and wrong, during these fires. Now is not the time for that. Once the ashes are washed away, and the barrage of photo-ops and press conferences subside, I suspect we will find that government did many things right, some wrong, and lots of things to improve upon. That is to be expected in any catastrophe. Overall, California will come out looking pretty good. Your Blackwater comment is insulting--I made no allegations of any kind about Blackwater or the fires.
One thing at a time. Right now, Arnie’s doing a great job as our Governor in this crisis.
I’m not the one debating “blame,” I’m not into it. But I think it’s unproductive to say “Send him back to Austria” at this point. There’s no reason at all for that. He’s proud to be an American, and you’d also have to find a replacement for him.
I don’t believe much, if anything, has been done wrong re the response to the fires, so there’s no debate in my mind.
Nor am I. But you attacked me anyway with your Blackwater comment.
But I think it’s unproductive to say “Send him back to Austria” at this point. There’s no reason at all for that. He’s proud to be an American, and you’d also have to find a replacement for him.
My suggestion was that he go back to Austria as opposed to having him be a California Senator or President of the United States. I see the latter two as a great threat.
I don’t believe much, if anything, has been done wrong re the response to the fires, so there’s no debate in my mind.
There have been many articles and statements made. We'll leave that for a later time.
I know where you are coming from. At times I feel the same way. However, I now believe that the left have fallen into the abyss and only an MSM that has openly come out to support them are fighting desperately to hold the party together.
Then I see their falling advertising dollars and viewership and I feel happy.
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