Posted on 09/02/2003 10:05:05 PM PDT by HadEnough
The Oui Republican Print Friendly Format E-Mail this to a Friend By George Neumayr Published 9/3/2003 12:04:00 AM
Arnold Schwarzenegger, not yet ready to play a Republican on television, planned to duck Wednesday's gubernatorial debate. Here we have the four-corners pampered celebrity offense. Schwarzenegger will only appear at one debate, a mid-September event that gives the candidates the questions in advance. Schwarzenegger can learn his lines for that one.
Schwarzenegger must chuckle at the ease with which he has manipulated this race. He only had to toss a few bones toward Republicans to get them to jump up on his lap. He made vague anti-tax sounds at one press conference and he is suddenly a Republican we can all trust. How many times will the Jim Jeffordses have to burn Republicans before they realize that liberal Republicans always govern like Democrats?
Schwarzenegger's statement that he wouldn't raise taxes unless there is an emergency is hardly reassuring. The state is in an emergency! Does that justify a tax hike? We'll see.
Unless a Republican is explicitly and philosophically opposed to new taxes he will eventually raise them. It is not hard to imagine a Governor Schwarzenegger raising taxes "for the children." His automatic dismissal of cuts to education spending -- he won't even consider them, despite the California educational system's reputation as a bloated bureaucracy and gravy train for hack teachers -- is telling.
It is clear that he has no concept of limited government. True, he says the state shouldn't spend money it doesn't have. But this just implies that it is okay to kick-start the spending once tax revenues roll in. That the state should only perform the few functions the people can't perform for themselves is not an idea in his head, as is clear from his remark that the "children" get first crack at the state treasury. Statists talk about "before-school and after-school programs"; conservatives talk about before-school and after-school parents.
Downplaying his adviser Warren Buffett's pro-tax positions, Schwarzenegger says that both the left and the right are represented in his campaign. Actually, it is only the left and the center. Wilsonites are not the right. Pete Wilson engineered the largest tax hike in California state history. Richard Riordan, another influence on Schwarzenegger, is also an avowed tax-hiker, once saying that "We must be willing to increase the tax dollars for schools. Pulling up the ladders will not be enough to protect us from the crime and the ultimate need for more tax dollars to take care of increasing social problems."
Like Riordan, Schwarzenegger has said that he is "very liberal" about social programs. How will he pay for these very liberal social programs? Social liberals never end up fiscal conservatives, because statism depends upon the financing of fiscal liberalism.
Unless Schwarzenegger grasps that government should only do what the people can't do for themselves, there is no reason to believe that he will govern as a fiscal conservative. Moreover, the social problems he wants government to solve were created in large part by the liberal morality he espouses. The irresponsible ethos he casually discussed in his comically obscene, exhumed Oui interview -- and which he still at some level accepts, as evident from his Howard Stern appearances -- has contributed to the pathologies that drive the expansion of government. Schwarzenegger is a "children's activist" who supports the sexual-revolution morality that hurts children.
If a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual adoption Democrat with a history of group sex were in the race, Republicans would consider that candidate a danger to the commonweal. So why does all of this become acceptable when the candidate has an "R" after his name? What does it profit a party to win and lose its soul? Now we even hear the same Republicans who lamented the Clintonization of politics rejoice that it will spare their candidate further scrutiny.
The race is now down to three candidates -- a liberal Democrat, a Republican with Democratic views, and a real Republican, Tom McClintock. He is a Republican rarity in the state, a politician with a functioning intellect and backbone. So clearly he is not electable. It never occurs to Republicans that this fatalism about conservatives like McClintock guarantees that they will never win. The fatalism fulfills itself. Yes, a half of a loaf is better than none. But if Schwarzenegger wins conservatives will be lucky to even get crumbs.
They sure are. They found the perfect fake Republican movie star, a Kennedy no less, to spoil the race for the conservative and split the Republican vote. And you're gleefully doing their work for them. The end result with a race between Arnold and Cruz will be a liberal governorship or a liberal governorship - the left wins either way.
Its certainly alot harder to answer me though.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/974929/posts?page=72#72
Technically, Spiff my boy, since Liberalism's fiscal failure when in deficit is more obvious, the liberal governorship with an 'R' helps the Democrates a whole lot more. Will (R)nold raise taxes? I ask you, few seem willing to answer this fundamentally critical issue in CA's future...
I couldn't answer that question if you were asking it about Tom McClintock. It's an inappropriate question to ask me. All I can tell you is what either of them have said, and that, you already know.
Are we finished with this particular tennis match?
Actually, Registered has been quite clear. You're the one who seems to be trying to complicate the issue.
I couldn't answer that question if you were asking it about Tom McClintock.
I can be of assistance, both Tom and the withdrawn Simon-signed an anti tax pledge.
All I can tell you is what either of them have said, and that, you already know.
But I KNOW what they've said already, I live here and follow this every single solitary day. My question to you is simple; barring a major earthquake/terrorist act, do you, DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet, simply believe that (R)nold will raise taxes in California?
Schwarzenegger avoids debate
ANALYSIS: RISKY STRATEGY FOR GOP HOPEFUL
By Dion Nissenbaum and Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News Sacramento Bureau
(AP Photo/Steve Yeater)
Arnold Schwarzenegger greets fans during a campaign stop at the California State Fair in Sacramento, on Monday, Sept. 1, 2003.
When the top competitors vying to replace Democratic Gov. Gray Davis take the stage today for the first debate in California's historic recall election, the forum may well be defined more by the candidate who doesn't plan to be there: Republican front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The actor's decision to avoid the nationally televised forum is the latest example of a calculated end run around the political establishment that Schwarzenegger is betting will propel him to the Capitol on Oct. 7.
Despite pledges from his advisers that the actor wouldn't run his campaign like a staged Hollywood movie premiere, Schwarzenegger is dodging tough questions, delaying interviews with political reporters and diverting criticism of his thin knowledge of state government by staging pep rallies that allow him to grab the spotlight without stumbling.
It's a risky strategy with potentially big rewards.
Schwarzenegger's international celebrity status has overshadowed his competitors in the recall. His political events are carried live on television. He is swarmed by fans wherever he goes. Even his absence is news.
``A debate without Arnold Schwarzenegger is like going to Pac Bell Park and Barry Bonds isn't playing,'' said Hoover Institution Research Fellow Bill Whalen, a onetime Schwarzenegger adviser.
Schwarzenegger and his team are well aware of the actor's ability to monopolize attention in the recall. One aide privately likened the movie star's challengers to the puny Lollipop Kids in ``The Wizard of Oz,'' and Schwarzenegger himself tried Tuesday to dismiss his political rivals for trying to hang onto his coattails.
``You have to understand that a lot of those candidates try to get, you know, more visibility and all that stuff by mentioning my name,'' Schwarzenegger said on KFI-AM radio in Los Angeles. ``It gives them air time and it gives them television and all those things. I understand the way this works, and if I can provide that for them, I'm more than happy to do so.''
Although he won't appear in today's debate, Schwarzenegger has agreed to take part in one forum with his rivals later this month in which the candidates will get the questions in advance. He said Tuesday that he was too busy talking to voters to participate in any more.
While Schwarzenegger's strategy is annoying his opponents and critics, it is the envy of some political strategists.
On Monday, Schwarzenegger was mobbed by cheering fans at the California State Fair, skirted tough questions, and ended the event by throwing campaign T-shirts over the heads of journalists and cameraman to supporters jostling for position and shouting out questions.
Talking to voters
``It's a metaphor for the campaign,'' said Kevin Spillane, a Republican consultant who worked for former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in his failed 2000 bid for governor. ``It's the fantasy of almost every politician alive to be able to go over the heads of the political press corps and talk directly to the voters.''
But Spillane said there is still a credibility gap with some voters Schwarzenegger needs to reach who ``still view him as nothing more than an actor'' who knows little to nothing about how to run a nation-state like California.
Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman challenged the notion that the actor is following a Hollywood strategy and avoiding the press, even though he has granted fewer interviews than any other major contender.
``This is a candidate who regularly makes himself available,'' said Stutzman.
While every other top challenger has agreed to talk with California's political press corps, Schwarzenegger has refused to sit down with print journalists -- despite repeated assurances from his campaign that the actor would quickly give interviews.
Nearly a month has passed since Schwarzenegger entered the race, and still no interviews have been scheduled. Instead, the actor has made time to appear on a half-dozen conservative talk radio shows.
That strategy may be starting to shift, although Schwarzenegger is sticking to television, where most Californians get their news: On Tuesday, he gave four interviews to Los Angeles TV stations.
When the actor does take questions at public events, he is able to pick and choose which ones he answers, and often takes time to answer questions from entertainment reporters more interested in trivia than substance.
Inside access
``It's like trying to get to the front row of a Clash concert with festival seating,'' said ``Inside Edition'' reporter Logan Byrnes, who was thrilled when Schwarzenegger answered his question at an Aug. 22 Huntington Beach stop about whether there was a rift brewing with liberal actors who share the same talent agency.
One reason Schwarzenegger may be avoiding lengthy interviews is that he has sometimes stumbled under tough questioning, said University of Southern California political science Professor Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.
``There may come a time when voters want to hear more from him, but from his campaign's point of view he's done far worse when opening his mouth around the press,'' she said.
The campaign got off to a rough start when Schwarzenegger struggled to answer questions on several morning television shows shortly after he declared his candidacy.
His campaign was preparing to set up newspaper interviews last week, when news broke about a controversial 1977 interview with Oui magazine in which Schwarzenegger bragged about sexual exploits.
``With a campaign like this one of zero substance, the center of gravity moves to character and values,'' said Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California. ``That's currently being defined for him. He either needs to deal with it or change the subject to how he's going to fix the economy.''
That doesn't tell me what would happen if they were elected. That just tells me what they claim.
Can you tell me Tom McClintock would keep his pledge under any unpredictable circumstance?
Nope. Not a chance. What I can tell you is that everyone can call Tom a big fat liar.
Now that I've answered your questions, yet again, are going to stop dodging mine?
Both.
LOL. The announcement was a nice show, but that was the clincher for me as well... Have you ever seen a bunch of dodging and dithering and trying to change a subject in your life as this thread? I thought I was busting into DU and having a free ride at asking them questions about the Clinton Impeachment. It was fun.
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