Arnold Schwarzenegger archives
From the chat at the California Republican Party convention in San Jose it's clear that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to take his re-election bid seriously.
More importantly, he's talked a bunch of the party's moderates into helping him out. So if you're a Democrat - here and elsewhere in the country - you might worry. Because the very public, very polite hardball that was being played between moderate and conservative Republicans this weekend was deftly executed. It may well be a road map for how Republicans across the country stare down conservative and get a moderate on the ticket. Who wins with this equation on a national stage? Sen. John McCain, that's who.
California conservatives - Saturday that was a press conference of five white men - are up in arms over what they see as the abandonment of the party's core values. They're ticked off at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desire to raise the minimum wage (which benefits minorities and hurts businesses), his appointment of Democratic judges to the state bench (who are soft on the death penalty - no one mentioned that a Republican judge had ruled against the state's ban on same-sex marriages) as well as his plans to actually use government bond money for its intended purpose (building roads and bridges instead of paying off bad utility debts).
They're a loud and powerful bunch but Democratic consultant Garry South's crack about "The Donner Party" and cannibalization isn't entirely wishful thinking on the part of his chosen candidate, Steve Westly. "None of the above" is the fastest growing party in California for some good, easy to understand reasons so conservatives sitting on their hands and not working the election - which is essentially what this group promised - may mean less this November than it ever did.
California Republicans don't exactly have a track record in which you can take pride. Last time California had a regular election the state's conservatives gave us Bill Simon because he was opposed to abortion. Simon promptly turned around and lost the general election to Grey Davis, a case of two pols out-boring each other. The front-running going into that Republican convention, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riorden would probably have won against Davis and might - having a personality - have escaped recall. The Simon candidacy was preceeded by Pete Wilson's race-baiting disguised as "immigration reform" which 10 years ago turned Latinos and other recent citizens into Democrats. And I'm leaving out former Rep. Darryl Issa's funding of the recall so he could be governor - until, of course, it was discovered that his brother was a car thief and that Issa himself wasn't uh, untouched by that relationship. So it's about time moderates re-claimed their party.
In Palo Alto lawyer Duff Sundheim, Schwarzenegger has a decent ally. Sundheim held court in the convention press room, the very picture of openness, co-operation and what the business folks these days like to call "transparency." Noting, almost in passing, that the state's Republican party had a long-standing reputation for being a "my way or the highway" group, particularly when it came to dealing with women. Sundheim came across as a moderate, interested, patient guy. "I tried to listen to a bunch of different perspectives," he told reporters.
That's nonsense, of course, he and the rest of the party leadership worked the party committee to make sure that the proposals favored by conservatives didn't make it to the convention floor for votes that would embarrass the governor. The proposals were discussed - an easy-to swallow face-saver - of course but there was no action. Still, Sundheim did well in placating conservatives. "If we can't have that open discussion within our party we are not fit to rule this state," Sundheim said, sounding a lot like, er, a Democrat, the party where fractious disagreement has been raised to a performance art. "I think we bent over backwards."
Maybe. What other conversations might California Republicans be having? Well, said Sundheim, a new tone might bring more people to the GOP. The state Republican party "was a narrow ideological organization - that's not what this process is all about" which could attract minorities and women. Women? So perhaps abortion isn't the litmus test it once was for Republicans? Sure, says Sundheim. "I think that's one of the things you can discuss."
Pitchman, actor, politician - in that order - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing great box office in China.
That's according to the California papers and the political reporters tagging along in Gov. Terminator's wake. It'd be kind of silly if it weren't so sad, providing, as it almost always does, more proof that businessmen make crummy diplomats. Sadder still? Schwarznegger's trip is almost certain to overshadow one planned next week by President George Bush.
Let's get the obvious out of the way first. The Chinese who meet Schwarzenegger and who are being interviewed for stories like this one from the San Francisco Chronicle aren't picked at random. They're getting into events to see and chat up Schwarzenegger and his posse of California businessmen because they can be trusted. Trusted by the Chinese government. Trusted to be pleasant, trusted not to be controversial, trusted to - figuratively and literally - toe the party line.
Schwarzenegger's accompanied on this boondoggle of self-congratulation by a posse of business folks, most of whom should know better. Not because the Chinese are posed to take over America and the governor should know better than to encourage that trend. That's a straw man argument that's as racist as it is short-sighted. No, it's that doing business in China almost always means doing business in partnership with the Chinese government.
And that's not always a comfortable trade-off because the Chinese government is one tough business partner. Ask Yahoo, which has deservedly taken heat for its co-operation in the jailing of a Chinese dissident. No one from that company is listed as being on the Schwarzenegger trip although, like most of high-tech - which is what the Chinese really want from California, not wine or fresh avacados - there's probably some meeting and greeting along the way.
As I have in the past, I'll point you to Rebecca MacKinnon, co-founder of GlobalVoices, the aggregation site for on-line writing. MacKinnon has spent more time in China than most folks and has been harshly critical of tech's willingness to co-operate with the government. She, more clearly than most, sees the connections between doing business in China and doing business for China. It's a tough line to draw and it's one that can easily get lost in all the show-biz that surrounds Schwarzenegger.
Continue reading "The Great Wall of Chinese Excuses" »
Yesterday's California election is being billed most correctly as the triumph of moderation. That's right. Moderation. Not Too Left. And Not Too Right. This has Mr. Trevino beside himself this morning. But I'll let him speak for himself.
The LATimes has, I think, the best take on the subject. In his zeal to become president, Arnold Schwarzenegger adapted the campaign strategies of winning Republicans like President George Bush.
With his popularity peaking, there was talk of amending the U.S. Constitution so that a foreign-born citizen could run for president — a tantalizing prospect for the ambitious Schwarzenegger. Many considered it implausible — why would U.S. senators change the Constitution to benefit a political rival? — but some around the governor were intrigued enough to entertain the prospect. They counseled a rightward shift to put the governor more in the mainstream of the national GOP.
Soon enough Schwarzenegger was openly disdaining the Democratic lawmakers he once called partners. He endorsed only Republicans in the November 2004 legislative races.
He flew to the key state of Ohio to make a last-minute push for President Bush's reelection and later crowed over Bush's win there. The partisan shift culminated in early January in his pugnacious State of the State speech, which opened a bitter off-year election season.
That probably seemed like a good idea last fall, particularly to Schwarzenegger's team of advisors, many of whom had suffered through former governor (and Schwarzenegger political mentor) Pete Wilson's disastrous presidential bid. Figuring they could finally do it this time, the Wilson boys decided that their conservative agenda from years ago, dusted off and updated for a new millennium of immigrant-baiting - Minutemen! - was a good game plan. After all, they had a tough-talking leader in the White House to show them the way, no? That might be one reason why Maria Shriver - a life-long Democrat and a veteran of Chicago politics - sat out this election.
She was smart. George Bush's polls are lower than low. We've got a troubled economy, a war that's not winnable, a White House facing continued investigations and perhaps another indictment, a Congress led by crooks - indicted like former majority leader Tom Delay or, like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission - and a bunch of Democrats who are grandstanding but doing so effectively. No one's sure who to blame but everyone's pretty sure it's not John Kerry.
San Francisco political consultant Jim Ross had a look at the numbers early this morning and had this comment which also supports the Triumph of Moderation Theory: "The Governor did not lose this race in the Liberal parts of the state but in the conservative parts. Where he needed 68% he was getting 63% on his measures." Arnold, call your office: Your base is slipping.
Ross thinks the more conservatives parts of the state - California, by the way, is a Red State with Blue trim - are moderating as Liberals move in land to buy homes they can't afford on the coast. I'm not so sure. I think it's fall-out from the general state of national affairs.
Republicans - all Republicans - got trouble. And Schwarzenegger being a movie star Republican got more trouble - and more vocal celebration - than pretty much anyone else.
Is Gov. Terminator terminal?
Mmmmm. Maybe. Yes, I know, the political establishment would love to say "yes." It makes them feel better, like the idea of Republican movie star politicians is a complete non-starter.
It's not, of course. Democrats have actor-pols, too, and one, Warren Beatty is threatening to run, pushing the two current no-name Democrats out of the way. The thought of a race between Beatty and Arnold Schwarzenegger ought to make every woman in the state laugh until she cries: The Skirt-chaser v. The Groper with Maria and Annette, two Brentwood housewives who make their livings in front of the cameras, by their respective sides. Sigh.
It could come to that - and honestly, I'd love to cover it - but first we've got to get past this ridiculous special election, scheduled for November 8. The ballot is the usual mish-mash of issues designed to bring out what politicians like to call "the base" - hardcore supports who will do what the man says. Arnold, being the man and "the base" in this case being the frustrated and pissed-off voters of California who put him in office in the first place.
Thinking that the people - Oh, there they are again! - would rise up and do what Gov. Terminator asked, Schwarzenegger decided to have a show-down with the state legislature. That was a miscalculation on Schwarzenegger's part, a symptom of how his administration has gone off the rails and indulged his celebrity status over the need to exercise a little political finesse. He packed the ballot with measures designed to consolidate power in the gov's office (that's the budget measure, Prop 76), take some power away from the unions (no spending on candidates or politics without a membership vote, Prop 75), and start to weaken the teachers' union (by increasing the time for tenure, Prop 74).
But the ballot - I have mine right here in front of me - also includes two measures covering prescription drugs (Prop 78 and Prop 79, which are on the back of my ballot) and an anti-abortion measure requiring girls to ask their parents' permission to have an abortion (Prop 73). And, finally, there's redistricting (Prop 77) which Democrats - and Republicans - are fighting tooth and nail. California's legislature may be filled with party hacks and lightweights but they've been at all of this a whole lot longer than Schwarzenegger and, with their allies, the unions, they aren't afraid to play rough.
Which brings us to what redistrcting is really about and why Schwarzenegger should not be counted out.
In a thoughtful and smart piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, San Francisco bureau chief Dean Murphy takes a look at what people want when they call for redistricting, which has been something of a calling card for Schwarzenegger in his talk about cleaning up Sacramento. The simple answer, says Murphy, is that voters want change - they want politicians to stop being what they don't want and start being what they do want. But that’s about as far as they get. Because, in the long run, redistricting doesn’t solve that problem.
But the frustration that Murphy talks about is one reason not to count Schwarzenegger out. His reform message is a powerful one - that's why he got asked to visit Ohio to help with that state's redistricting efforts. And it's clear - everywhere you look - that dissatisfaction with politics and politicians is very high. Schwarzenegger was re-elected by frustrated voters, two years ago. And their frustration - the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, the pending indictments in Washington - are growing every day, not just in California but across the country.
In that respect, Schwarzenegger is a politician for our time. He is also remarkably resiliant with a wonderful ability to bring people to his side with his goofy plain-spokeness and his happy grin. When he keeps his crude, taunting body-builder's personality out of the limelight, he does well: he's funny and fearless. He's also learned a big lesson and he's learned it the hard way. He is not above nuts-and-bolts politicking as much as he - and his idealized image of "the people" - makes him think he is. If the special election falls flat - in turn-out or in failure for the initiatives he's endorsed - that lesson won't be lost on anyone else, either.
It's official: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a tin ear.
His decision to veto same-sex marriage legislation passed by the California legislature is a silly and a foolish sop to the Republican Party's conservatives.
Those folks are going to vote for Schwarzenegger anyway - providing he runs, which is looking a lot less likely. It's the great undecided that Schwarzengger - in keeping with his election message - should be calling to his side and to the Republican Party. Particularly now, when Republicans are in such trouble.
This isn't hard: Folks who don't care about gay marriage as a political issue aren't all that political, for starters. Right now, they're thinking Katrina not Kate and Allie. Or, since they don't care about the idea of same-sex couples, they not opposed to the idea. (For a look at the internal politics of gay marriage, please read our own Deborah Klosky).
None of this is hard to figure. Unless you're one of Schwarzenegger's Pete Wilson retread advisors. Those are the guys who undoubtedly suggested that supporting wack-job outfits like the Minuteman border patrol was a good idea but joining with the Democratic Governors in Arizona and New Mexico to declare a federal emergency along California's Mexican border is a bad idea.
Following that logic, I guess it makes perfect sense to alienate moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats at a time when the Republican Party - from the state house to the White House - needs to show a bit more compassion and a lot less conservatism.
A few weeks ago, when the details about Arnold Schwarzenegger and American Media got their biggest play, Gov. Terminator caught a break. It was the same week that New York Times reporter Judy Miller went to jail and the East Coast political media, never quick on its feet in July anyway, took only cursory notice.
But there's nothing going on right now. And today's story in the LATimes about the tabloid that paid Schwarzenegger to 'edit' its magazines, and also paid a woman for a story it never ran, stinks well past high heaven.
This, of course, is always what the American Media deal has been about. The idea that Schwarzenegger - a man with a well-known distaste for reading anything too long, a guy who prefers to be talked to - "edits" is laughable. He was being paid by the magazine to be Schwarzenegger the body-builder. The actor -- not the poltician -- attracted advertisers and sponsors to the magazine and its various spin-offs and, to judge by the millions American Media was willing to cough up, it was worth it.
With that kind of money floating around, another $21,000 isn't a huge deal. That's probably a back page full-color ad and, while wooing the movie star, now govenor, American Media was probably happy to pay it. For an actor, that's pin money. For a politician, that's real cash.
So the governor is in real trouble. And this story has a lot of the things that make for a good summer scandal: Sex, politics, money and movie stars. Last month, Schwazenegger's butt got saved by Karl Rove et al. This month it might be the other way 'round.
It's possibly the oddest, certainly the least expected, twist in one of the more interesting political stories of our time: How did King of the Recall Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger get stopped dead in the water? What the hell happened?
I have no ready and easy answers. Really, I don't. I think it's a dangerous and fool-hardy task to try and sum up the governor's motives and predict his behavior. Many have done so before -- remember all those folks who said he wasn't running even as they sat backstage on the Tonight Show? -- and they've ended up with egg on their faces.
I prefer to save my yolks.
Part of what's going on with Schwarzenegger's bad press is nothing more than the triumph of the state's permanent political class. See, he's an actor. Of course he can't govern. That's jealousy and, more dangerously, particularly for Democrats, it's complacency. They think they've got the gov where they want him. They might be very wrong.
I've said this before: Schwarzenegger likes being underestimated. He considers it a position of strength because it allows him - the strongest of the strong men - to think of new ways of doing things, of new unexpected tactics. That's what Ali's rope-a-dope was all about: wearing down your opponent so you could marshal your strength and come out swinging.
But you gotta be strong enough to take it. And that's much easier said than done. If this is indeed what Schwarzenegger is doing by, among other things, refusing to cancel the November special election, it could work. Democrats can and have raised a lot of money to fight the governor. But they've also spent a lot, too. And they'll need to spend more. But Schwarzenegger can raise money. And he hasn't spent that much.
More dangerous: There's a point -- as any good salesmen knows -- when the pitch is too familiar and it goes unheard. Big Bad Arnold, punisher of nurses, stripper of pensions, bullier of women is a one-note song and it's been playing for a year now. There are a number of ways Schwarzenegger - the non-political politician -- can handle this. Being a movie star first and a governor second gives him a lot of flexibility.
Some of this mess is Schwarzenegger's fault, however. He walked right into the diminished expectations set by the state's pols and fulfilled them. The ballot initiatives he's endorsed are flawed and may not appear on the November ballot.
That's not deliberate. It's sloppy and it speaks to either a reliance on the incompetent or a disregard for the political process, neither of which are hallmarks of good government. Schwarzenegger has insisted on Hollywood-like control of his image which makes him look hypersensitive and egomaniacal, a man above the people he claims to be representing. He's treated Sacramento like a campaign platform -- a movie role, really -- not a duty, a job or an obligation. His magazine and real estate deals didn't help remove either of these perceptions. They were and are foolish and short-sighted money grabs of a wealthy man worried about going broke.
If Schwarzenneger wants to run in 2006, he's going to have to backtrack. Fast. And publicly. Look for the Kennedy touch, coming soon to a Commonwealth Club or Town Hall near you.
Now the beauty of Schwarzenegger is that he can do this. And voters will probably believe him. He's still, in the end, a movie star. He's still a powerful and engaging celebrity. But time is almost running out. But he needs to treat the governor's job as something more than a great, wonderful adventure.
Man that was fast. Gov. Terminator really is moving quickly to becoming Gov. Terminal.
This million dollar deal – the Sac Bee says $5 million, the LATimes $8 million – with magazines that endorse and push dietary supplements is a whole lot easier for folks to understand than anything involving White House leaks, the CIA or inside baseball.
The Gov. got paid by the folks who make the stuff -- the good supplements (yeah, right) and the bad ones, too -- that made baseball player blow up like bugs and hit big fat home runs. Got it.
If Schwarzenegger were more popular this wouldn't be as much of an issue. But he's not. And the perception that underscored his election – that he was too rich, too powerful, too much of a movie star to be bought – just took a big hit.
Let's talk about California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In some respects, the problems Gov. Terminator is having are the same problems that President George Bush is having: A recalcitrant legislature happily taking advantage of his extreme position on some important issues.
The two executive office-holders like to think of themselves as tough, decisive leaders. And, certainly, the Bush administration is doing a great deal to reassert the authority of the president and the office; that's really what's at stake in the arguments, legal and otherwise, over records and meeting agendas the White House doesn't want to share with Congress. They don't often use the phrase "executive privilege" but that's what they're asserting.
Schwarzenegger is trying something similar. He is trying to reassert the authority the governor has over state policy. That's what shrinking commissions and advisory boards is all about; those boards are a kind of patronage system for the Democratically dominated state legislature. Creating a weaker legislature is the main reason the governor would like to see redistricting enacted: it is an attempt – perhaps the only one the state may have – to wrest power away from the state employees' unions who, almost automatically, endorse Democrats.
With the "war" on terror and the fear that 9/11 has inspired – not to mention the fear of fear that seems to pervade American politics these days -- President Bush is having much better luck asserting his authority and that of his office. I'm going to leave it to presidential scholars to decide the merits of what he's doing. There is, however, no getting around the perception that the insular nature of this particular administration has left us with a series of unbalanced policies – not to mention the memos that support them. Some of this is starting to come home to roost in the U.S. Senate where the administration's hand-picked Majority Leader has shown himself not up for the job. That's creating a rare opportunity for the president's political rivals and his foes, the Democrats.
Gov. Schwarzenegger may be trying to imitate Bush's tough can-do approach to confronting and solving problems. It is, after all, an extension of his "Hasta La Vista, baby" Terminator image. Tough guy Arnold swept into Sacramento to clean house.
But, particularly during this past year, it seems that Gov. Terminator has turned into Gov. Terminal. He's hitting dead end after dead end. And he's called a special election for the fall that, if things keeps going the way they have been for the past few months, may well be the end of his political career.
Continue reading "Terminator to Terminal" »
Last time he was this unpopular, Arnold Schwarzenegger made "Kindergarten Cop." Think he can find a funny and endearing way to get out from under falling polls, a nasty ad campaign and restore his image as the bi-partisan can-do non-politician?
Probably. But it's going to take work.
In the most recent issue of The Washington Monthly, the LATimes Mark Barabak takes a look at the gov and comes away pretty unimpressed. Schwarzenegger is in trouble, he says. And it may be permanent.
Barabak is going to enjoy being right – really right – for a couple of weeks now. Because today's polls show that Gov. Terminator has made a mistake in pissing off the state's nurses, cops and firefighters. It's not that his approval rating has sunk to 40 percent, ten points lower than when Barabak was writing, it's that Schwarzenegger's disapproval numbers are at 50 percent. That's dangerous territory.
Some of this could well be that Schwarzenegger's biggest supporters – moderates in both parties – are off doing what moderates do in off-year elections: Thinking about something besides politics.
But there has always been an ugly, angry side to Schwarzenegger's devil-may-care charm. It probably feeds his determination and discipline. He does a decent job of hiding – or he has since he decided to be a politician -- but it pops out at odd moments. It's why he feels free to treat women badly or to trash about Democrats as if politics were some kind of intramural dodge ball game. During the Recall campaign that determination was part of Schwarzenegger's charm, a sort of roue's attraction that set him apart from the professional politicians. But now that he's around all the time, the charm is wearing a bit thin; repeated exposure to what might be jocular nastiness in Hollywood where he's a big money maker or in bodybuilding competitions is giving voters and professional politicians a look at a character who is less than generous.
That doesn't mean, as Barabak tries not to say but still believes, that Schwarzenegger is out for the count. It's far too early to make that prediction. Kindergarten Cop was a masterful stroke – one that made the awkward Conan and the threatening Terminator guy look funny and approachable. It gave Schwarzengger's career a big boost with a group that didn't know him or, if they did, didn’t like him. What many people like about Schwarzenegger – his self-deprecation, his humor and his willingness not to take himself too seriously – came through vividly in that film which changed the course of his career. And don't ever forget: this is a man who likes doing things others tell him are impossible and who thrives on being underestimated and written off.
Will the governor back away from the special "reform" election? It's looking like a distinct possibility. Does this mean the governor is giving up on his ideas to reform the budget? Probably not. But if he gives the Democrats some breathing room on redistricting – which he acknowledged was necessary anyway – he might get the reform he wants through the legislature. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing and – like Kindgergarten Cop proving he was funny – would show political observers like Barabak that Schwarzengger does understand this governing thing.
Oh, we may be in for a very hot summer.
Political dominos, California style, has never been trickier for either side of the equation. It's one big fat "on the other hand" involving the ambitions of two men who personify the differences within the Democratic Party, a Republican celebrity governor who thrives on being underestimated – the Democratic Party's current attitude (This link is no longer active.) – and some hot-button social issues that could backfire.
Here's one hot-button: An initiative requiring doctors to notify parents when their daughters seek abortions. If the signatures submitted last week are all verified, the initiative will appear on the next statewide ballot. That will bring social conservatives – the state's inland counties – to the polls in droves. When? Depends.
The earliest state-wide balloting could be in the fall. That's if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decides that his pet reform projects won't make it through the legislature. Since the two easiest to understand measures - a change in the way teachers, members of the state's most powerful union, are paid and a new way to draw lines for Congressional and legislative districts - are blows to Democrats, it's unlikely Schwarzenegger will get everything he wants.
Continue reading "They All Fall Down" »
It is getting harder and harder to ignore the coming split between labor unions and the Democratic Party. The split has started in California cities where hairline fractures are becoming cracks and it's going all the way to the top of the ticket.
When all is said and done, there's a good chance that the Golden State may not be a reliable Democratic stronghold because it is labor that provides Democrats with money and muscle during elections.
The signs are pretty much everywhere. But let's start in San Francisco, long home to some of the West Coast's most powerful unions. First, despite it's pre-Christmas strikes, the union lost its bid to make all contracts with San Francisco's hotels run on the same national timetable.
Continue reading "Fading Unions" »
Okay, so my favorite Ambivalent Lawyer Josh Benson over there at Berkeley's Boalt Law School has written in to give me a hard time about the stuff I've written about Gov. Schwarzenegger.
He makes some good points and he pretty much represents the criticism I've seen and heard elsewhere so I'll give him the floor for a few minutes. I don't really disagree with anything Benson is saying. But Democrats – national and here in California – are focused on process not on politics. I've been trying to write about how Republicans are deftly – national and here – using politics to implement the policies they believe are necessary. Just 'cause you notice it don't mean you like it. I shouldn't need to say that's the way things are supposed to work but, uh, we live in difficult times.
Continue reading "Operation Stop Arnold: A Better Road Map" »
Progressive libertarians of California, your moment is at hand. Make that moments. And if you're a tried and true California Democrat – as opposed to being a business-oriented moderate with a fiscally conservative streak -- you might want to pay careful attention to some of the strands blowing in the wind. (This link is no longer active.)
It's gonna be make or break for California Democrats this year. And, from the press accounts, it seems like they know it. The party that's been running the state – they run the legislature – is facing an opponent who is popular, savvy and ruthless. Oh, yeah, and he's an international movie star, too.
Here's the state of play:
Continue reading "Operation Stop Arnold" »
Charles' take on Schwarzenegger is a good excuse to check in with our Governor. If ever there was a rich man parading – deliberately and with breath-taking calculation – as a Populist it's Gov. Terminator and his oft-stated desire to go to "the people."
Schwarzenegger has managed to capture a tremendous bipartisan frustration with government and bureaucracy and that should not be dismissed lightly. Now that his experienced legislative opponents are either retired or soon to be packing up their offices, signs of real hand-to-hand combat (This link is no longer active.) with the California legislature are quietly building. Schwarzenegger may well call for a special election on his reform packages, some budget stuff, some tax stuff and a bunch of administrative goodies thrown in. And that election – where Schwarzenegger won't really have an opponent, just some vaguely articulated ideas about how government and politics-as-usual – could be a very interesting and very telling contest. Gov. Terminator might not be able to get more Republicans elected to the legislature but he can sure influence how people vote on ballot initiatives. And in a state where the fastest growing voter registration choice is "none of the above" – which hurts partisan Democrats and helps moderate Republicans -- it's easy to see how Schwarzenegger could win and win big.
It's an early Christmas over at Vanity Fair for all you Big Media critics.
Marie Brenner serves up a perfectly boring interview with the family Schwarzenegger (the magazine's website is little more than a list of upscale advertisers so don't even bother looking for the piece on-line). The Schwarzenegger reporting gold standard remains Connie Bruck's piece in The New Yorker until the book on Schwarzenegger's political life and the recall that I keep hearing about comes out next year. The VF photos are great, however, particularly the cover shot: A full color, only-in-California shot featuring our groping Governor astride a motorcycle, his hand firmly planted on his wife's shapely calf.
Hollywood. (This link is no longer active.) Man, you really can't beat it.
The idea of amending the constitution to let Arnold Schwarzenegger – or any of the 12 million people like him who were born outside the U.S. – become president is one that should be taken seriously.
Not because it's going to happen. It's far too early in this idea's little wacky-but-feasible lifecycle to make any predictions. Democratic opposition – he'd win the presidency in a walk – is stiff.
It should be taken seriously for a couple of reasons that have only a little bit to do with Schwarzenegger. First of all, the headquarters for the whole AmendForArnold she-bang is at 3000 Sand Hill Road. For those of you on the East Coast in politics this might not mean very much. For those of us on the West Coast with a more-than-passing acquaintance with things Silicon Valley, it speaks volumes.
Continue reading "Attention New Arrivals: Your Party is Waiting" »
One of L.A.'s finest, Marc Cooper has written as good an account of what's really going on with the various Indian gaming initiatives on the ballot next month as I've seen yet. He sorts out the tribe v. tribe issues and lays out the politics and the money – lots and lots of money.
I am remiss in not pointing to this earlier. Read it before you vote.
It’s looking as though Contra Costa County is on its way to becoming the cautionary tale of all cautionary tales for greedy labor. For Republicans like Gov. Terminator looking to crack down on the state's payroll expenses, this couldn't come at a better time.
The CoCo sitution could become a very big political fight because unions support much of what happens in the California Democratic Party. They’re the money and they’re the muscle. If they’re seen as the enemy – hard to believe but it is happening – the party is weaker. And it's not like Schwarzenegger's losing any steam.
Continue reading "Pigs Get Fed. Hogs Get Slaughtered." »
Over at Tapped, The American Prospect magazine’s web site, young Matthew Yglesias has a post with some interesting implications for all you California anti-taxistas.
Yeah, you. And you, too. Yes, we – particularly those of us who are self-employed and cash out the occasional shares of, er, Google – get hit and hit hard on cap gains and income and all sorts of other stuff. But saying that means the state is "overtaxed" is using anecdote to devise policy. Silicon Valley’s self-employed money managers are in the minority. And yes, you pay more because you make more – that’s how it works. And yes, it's as much as your Dad made in a year. You would prefer something different? 'Cause that's possible....
Continue reading "California Dreamin’" »
It’s the dog days of summer. The Republican National Convention is dominating the news.
Here’s something you don’t want to miss: Two stories about how private companies, interacting with California government agencies, seem to have, uh, cheated.
The first, from the AP courtesy of The Bee talks about Chevron’s influence on the California Performance Review. The second, from the San Francisco Examiner, tries to find out which bone-head in which San Francisco department let the developer – contrary to the plans approved by the city – tear down more of the structure than permitted.
Continue reading "Cynical Creations" »
By contrast, Gov. Terminator’s speech was positively cheery, no? Well, that’s our governor: a fun loving money-making moderate.
His invitation for immigrants like him to join the Republican Party was broad and inclusive and as moving – in its freemarket way – as soon-to-be-Sen. Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention. Oh, and this is no accident, this is a powerful fight for new new Americans, make no mistake, and we’ll be seeing a lot more of it in the years to come.
Continue reading "Immigration Muscle" »
Wired magazine has discovered politics.
Yes, Wired (which doesn't have its own web address) the former home of writers who looked forward to the withering away of the state has discovered U.S. politics. You know the stuff that concerns your daily life. It’s so retro, it’s really cool. It's only a matter of time before people with pierced lips and Treo600 phones start running for office. Oh, wait, I live in San Francisco....
Continue reading "So Tired" »
The Arnold Assessments won’t stop. Must be a sign that Big Media – the East Coast version – is as bored with all the “hero/not-a-hero” arguments as I am.
Josh Benson at The New Republic has turned his attention to Arnold Schwarzenegger and he makes a few good points. Yup, Gov. Terminator has made it more expensive to go to college in California which is a lot more of a problem for folks trying to get the basics – into say, D’Anza, a community college in San Jose – than it is for out-of-state grad students. And yup, Gov. Terminator is vulnerable. And no, he’s not as much of a powerhouse in Sacramento as he is perceived to by from New York and Washington, D.C.
Continue reading "Revisionista Arnoldista" »
Well, well, well, Gov. Terminator ain’t gonna pay for no stinkin’ bridge. The $2.3 billion in cost over-runs, he says, are the San Francisco Bay Area’s to worry about.
Oh my. Oh dear. Call me cynical – it’s okay, I can take it – but I smell a little old-fashioned political payback here. The kind that leads to naming names and assigning specific blame for cost over-runs.
Continue reading "A Long Ride Off a Short Bridge" »
The fight to allow legal U.S. immigrants to vote is spreading. In Washington, D.C., they’re going San Francisco one better and talking about letting all legal residents who are not citizen in on The District’s elections.
Interesting, no? The biggest proponents are the city’s entrepreneurs, its small businesses owners. In D.C. that's Ethiopians. In San Francisco, it’s Chinese immigrants.
In this climate -- voters rights for immigrants are breaking out all over -- it’s foolish to think that the Constitution can’t be changed to allow Gov. Terminator to become president (this link is no longer active). Very foolish. It’s equally short-sighted to think that immigrant voters are always Democrats, too. Whenever you see small business folks looking to control politics chances are good they’re worried about nuts and bolts stuff like taxes, street cleaning, and garbage collection. Basic, sometimes conservative, stuff.
The New York Times piece detailing the D.C. maneuvering is quick to talk about immigrant voting rights from the last century, before anti-Semitism and its obnoxious sibling Red-baiting became so ingrained in U.S. immigration policy.
So here’s something to watch: how fear of terror colors this debate which, in many respects is a move for recognition on the part of recent U.S. arrivals who want – really and truly want – to partake in what they believe is the American Dream. This is a big fight and it will have political ramifications for both parties, the kind that can realign loyalties very quickly. So pay attention; it’s just getting started.
His tanned and toned face – along with that big tacky turquoise ring – are front and center as Gov. Terminator makes the cover of Fortune, not quite celebrating the passage of the state’s budget and not yet anticipating what promises to be a far more important – and lasting – political battle to reform state government.
The Fortune piece isn’t much, which is likely a timing problem more than anything else. The issue is meant to celebrate power which Schwarzenegger has, relishes, and employs in a variety of ways. But instead of concentrating on Gov. Terminator’s flexibility and his willingness to let Democrats get ahead of his own party (he's done it twice now), Fortune concentrates a bit too much on Schwarzenegger’s belief in the power of his celebrity.
Continue reading "Fortunate Sons" »
Okay, so what’s really going on here in California with the budget?
A bunch of different things. Confusion, understandably, abounds.
First Gov. Terminator, who has famously said that he likes to work quickly, is a little teed-off over the Legislature’s decision to drag its feet. He promised a budget by the end of June and well, it’s July 19th. Looks bad. Not terrible. But bad, a chink in the old armor (this link is no longer active). And the governor’s got things to do, ya know? It’s a bi-partisan household, they got travel plans.
More interesting is the longer-term political strategy. Schwarzenegger may be using the Democrats’ foot-dragging as a way to build up a little political credibility with his own party. Remember how steamed the Republicans were when the Gov. cut a financial deal last time around and didn’t tell them in until the last minute? Not this time. All together now: Girlie Mon!
Besides, staring down the unions and the trial lawyers (this link is no longer active), well, that’s primo Democratic “special interest” territory, a red flag for any Republican, moderate or otherwise. With the unions geared up – financially and otherwise – to make absolutely the state goes for Democratic nominee John Kerry and his trial lawyer running mate, John Edwards, Schwarzenegger is scoring a few cheap points. The two pieces of tag-along legislation aren’t huge deals in the grand scheme of things. One would give schools the right to hire private (not necessarily unionized) companies for services like meals and bus service. The other is the repeal of a law, signed by lame duck Gov. Gray Davis, covering employee lawsuits against employers. Repeal is good for Republicans, bad for Democrats.
That’s the short-term play. But there’s the longer look. Two Republicans with ties to the administration – policy advisor Joe Rodota and Dan Schnur – are hinting that some of this fight is about the Gov.’s much-discussed but still secret reform package, which is scheduled to be teed-up after the budget. Schnur said as much to the Chron over the weekend. Rodota, appearing on KRON’s “4 the Record” political chat show suggested that an election-year showdown was simply a good way for Gov. Terminator to show future legislators that he means business.
Schwarzenegger might be ticking off hard core Democrats – and I have yet to meet a California Democrat who wasn’t, deep-down, scared of the unions – but there’s another audience here. California is filled with upper middle class self-employed folks -- none of us have jobs, it’s true -- who don’t understand the unions’ or the lawyers’ power. These non-partisan Progressive Libertarians see these two groups as little more than special interests that control the Democrats -- to the party’s detriment.
The independence on the part of non-partisan liberals who might normally support the Democratic Party agenda dovetails nicely – but not completely – with an essay by Thomas Frank (author of the summer must-read for Progressive Democrats, “What’s The Matter with Kansas?”) that appeared in the LATimes over the weekend.
Frank says Democrats have abandon the middle class (this link is no longer active), choosing instead to follow the money – Hollywood, corporations, bankers -- and court upper middle class liberals who have the time to worry about so-called cultural issues. His thesis, with which I partly agree, got some nice comments from Political Animal Kevin Drum yesterday.
But the current state of California politics – where Schwarzenegger can successfully rail against the unions and the lawyers as a warm-up to more and more intense state-wide reform – provides a more realistic glimpse of another aspect of the party’s flawed strategy. The unions are as wealthy as corporate donors in many respects, but they lack the sort of on-the-ground negotiating muscle the once had. So, for many outside their organizations – or in, listen to what SEIU President Andrew Stern said when he came to San Francisco last month – their power has less status and their membership doesn’t reflect the folks they should be representing. In a Wal-mart nation, where we’ve come to accept that it’s every man or woman for his or herself and to hell with the other guy, the unions have gotten out of step. They are fat and happy. For Progressive Libertarians, not exactly a charitable bunch, that’s dumb and slow. And dumb and slow for a group that’s interested in speed, agility (mental and financial) and flexibility, well, it’s the same as roadkill.
Up in Sacramento, Bee Columnist Dan Weintraub takes a look at the full-court press to get a state budget – a major fumble by Gov. Terminator (and he was getting such nice press, too).
Weintraub says Schwarzenegger should stop wasting his celebrity on a stupid deal that doesn't change anything and should, instead, push for wholesale reform of the state’s property tax system. Yes! And while he doesn’t use the Prop. 13 argument that I like so much -- it’s got to go, particularly for corporate landowners -- he comes very, very close.
Now, columnists don’t call the shots – oh, that they did – but Weintraub’s calling on Schwarzenegger to use his star power for a big project is welcome.
Finally, finally, someone has gotten around to doing a quality profile of Gov. Terminator. The July 28 issue of The New Yorker has the best, most intelligent treatment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s life, his political ambition and his marriage to Maria Shriver that you’re likely to see. It’s an important piece, not just for what it says but how – and where – it makes its case.
It took someone who isn’t cowed by and who understands the power of celebrity – as it’s used in and outside Hollywood -- to really look at the governor. Connie Bruck, known for her savvy and well-reported books on Drexel Burnham, Time Warner creator Steve Ross and Hollywood power broker Lew Wasserman knocks another one out of the park with her piece on Schwarzenegger.
Continue reading "A New Kind of Politics?" »
All this ruminating on Gov. Terminator brings us, as you might expect this being July in California, to a few thoughts on the budget and the reforms Gov. Terminator may or may not have planned.
Continue reading "Playin' Possum" »
Reporter still don’t get Gov. Terminator.
He’s so honest and open about his willingness to be less honest and open, they’re not sure what to do. So they write it all down, throw in a few caveats, and, it seems, hope for the best.
I kinda feel sorry for them. They’re really confused. I mean aren’t politicians supposed to pretend to be honest, self-effacing do-gooders? Yeah. In the movies.
Continue reading "The Big Smoky Tent" »
Gov. Terminator wrapped himself in an Indian blanket and declared victory, announcing a deal with some of the state’s tribes over gambling. But as both The Bee (this link is no longer active) and the LATimes (this link is no longer active) spell out, this fight is far from won. A few months ago, The Chron’s Mark Simon sketched out the politics on this issue a few months ago. His piece is still worth reading.
Continue reading "Disappearing Wampum" »
Gambling and Indians has moved from the back burner of California politics where its been boiling away nicely, thank you, to the front of the stove with the news that Gov. Terminator has cut a pretty solid deal with some of the tribes.
It’s an attempt to get gaming questions off the November ballot; but this fight is no slam-dunk. Schwarzenegger could be in for a real fight, the kind that makes or breaks. Things go well, the governor collects more taxes, casinos expand in a regulated and well-planned way and everybody's happy. Things go badly, the TV explodes with ads, casinos spring up whereever the tribes want to place them and Schwarzenegger gets a black mark on his so far sterling political record.
Continue reading "Ready, Set, Gamble" »
Time, once again, for a look at how some of what’s said here is showing up out there in Big Media.
Salon weighs in with what – if the editors I’m talking to are able to shepherd their stories into print – will be the first of a series of reappraisals of Calfornia Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger as a politician. Over at the SF Weekly, Matt Smith turns in a thorough critique of Schwarzengger’s tax policies, taking a refreshing and much-needed look at what’s happening in the rest of the state.
Continue reading "More Stuff We Already Knew" »
The Sacramento Bee’s Dan Weintraub is well on his way to becoming the Lou Cannon of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political career. Here’s a very good and in-depth interview he did with Gov. Terminator. Very interesting, particularly the part where our nominally Republican governor talks about being more of a centrist than a conservative.
UPDATE:Whattayaknow, Lou Cannon himself takes a turn at appraising Schwarzenegger in today's New York Times and notes that the current governor is not, actor stereotypes aside, Ron Reagan. There's nothing too revealing (for you regular readers) but Cannon lets Sen. John Burton make a good point about Schwarzenegger's Hollywood-honed negotiating skills.
Sometimes – often, actually – when I read the papers I wonder what country I live in. 'Cause some days…some days….
Sunday was a classic. First, Garry Trudeau took a shot at Gov. Terminator’s bad habit (now apparently in remission) of grabbing women. Pretty funny. But, for Californians, beside the point. Take a look at Dan Weintraub’s take on Arnold Schwarzengger’s first six months in office. He gives the Gov. a “B” for effort and an “A+” for marketing.
Continue reading "A Tree Grows in Sacramento" »
It could be election fatigue. Or it could be that with an immigrant in the governor’s mansion – a Republican immigrant in the governor’s mansion – the Southern California knee-jerk fear of the great Mexican menace isn’t quite as strong these days.
The Sacramento Bee reports that an attempt to revive Prop. 187 – the ballot initiative calling for California to restrict benefits for illegal immigrants -- has hit a snag. Organizers can’t get enough signatures to get the thing on the ballot. Some of this is, no doubt ,due to turn out in the last election. You need more names on the petitions. But some could be due to the acceptance – by Republicans in particular – of politicians with not-so-waspy last names.
Or maybe it’s just that the state’s more recent immigrants, the ones who got here within oh, the past 30 years – just like Gov. Terminator! – are close to really seizing political power in the state. A business reporter covering the workers’ compensation negotiations in Sacramento said he was struck by Schwarzenegger’s tactics. As soon as he figured out that Latinos carried the freight on this issue – and that’s a deliberate pun – he behaved accordingly and got the votes he needed.
You can take the ‘blogger out of California and, it seems, you can take the California out of the ‘blogger.
Kevin Drum, formerly solo as Calpundit, now a staff ‘blogger (is there such a thing?) for The Washington Monthly, latched on to Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger’s suggestion that the state legislature meet only part-time. It’s probably not an entirely serious suggestion – from what I can see, Schwarzenegger likes to screw with reporters and if he can do that and yank Democratic Sen. John Burton’s chain, he probably figures it’s a day well spent. When I first heard Gov. Terminator’s comments all I could think about was Gore Vidal’s line about air conditioning ruined democracy because it allowed Congress to stay in Washington, D.C. through the summer.
Continue reading "It's There. Just Look." »
On the eve of what could be a big victory – the resolution of California’s nasty and expensive workmen’s compensation insurance system – let’s take a few minutes to consider Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a politician. This is no joke. And neither is he.
Schwarzengger understands how to win votes, on the street and in the legislature. Toward voters, Schwarzenegger is charming and patient, (This link is no longer active.) explaining that his candidacy has begun to interest more people in politics and government, a good thing.
Continue reading "All Things in Moderation" »
So far, there are two things to learn from this recent election.
Californians love Gov. Terminator.
And while they may like their state Senator or Assemblyperson, they do not like the legislature. Not even a little bit.
Prop. 56 – the food fight bill – to lower the requirement for tax legislation went down to defeat soundly. Only San Francisco approved the thing.
But Props. 57 and 58, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed, campaigned for and dragooned a passel of Democrats into supporting, passed handily. Pollsters are going to be talking about the proposition’s come-from-behind finish for a long time. The message for now, however, is pretty clear: don’t tug on The Terminator’s cape.
Continue reading "Lessons Learned. The Hard Way." »
Ya gotta figure something’s really changed when Jay Leno has become the state’s premier political journalist. When The Tonight Show starts selling transcripts we’ll know the divide between entertainment and politics has finally been bridged.
The folks in Sacramento keep blaming this direct too-the-people approach on Schwarzenegger’s arrogance or egotistical belief in his ability to talk to the people. Or something. I got another take: Until Gov. Terminator can find some reason to take the political press corps seriously, he’s not gonna. This is as true for the press, by the way, as it is the legislature and the Republican Party. Until Gov. Terminator needs you, he doesn’t.
Continue reading "Takin' It To the Street" »
1.Having read President Bush’s comments calling for a constitutional amendment to define marriage while maintaining states’ rights (baby: split), I’m standing by my that much of the tension underlying gay marriages is over the changing role of women.
C.V. Nevius turns in a nice column sort of making this point in today’s Chron by quoting a bunch of religious scholars who point out that marriage has changed – a lot – in the past 2,000 years. And while I’m saying nice things – hey, it happens -- about the crowd down on Mission Street, please note their coverage of the gay marriage issues has been complete, smart and, every once in a while – Nevius today, for example – useful.
Continue reading "Stuff We Knew. Misc. Entries." »
By popular demand, according to his spokeswoman, Gov. Terminator has emblazoned his name over the door to his office. Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub has posted a nifty picture and a little history: until a movie star landed in Sacramento, the sign just said, “Governor.”
Reason for the change? Tourists want a piece of the Terminator. And it’s a lot easier to have them take pictures of the words “Arnold Schwarzenegger” rather than have them lurking around looking for the guy himself or stealing matches or spoons or whatever else they could get cart off.
That’s star power. That's not the only manifestation, however.
Next day, holding their noses and gritting their teeth, the state’s Democrats start falling in line to endorse – oh, go ahead, twist their arms – the $15 billion bond issue deal that voters will know as Props. 57 and 58. We knew this was going to happen but it's nice when a plan comes together.
TV ads starring Gov. Terminator and Silicon Valley fave Controller Steve Westly started running yesterday.
Coincidence? Sure it is.
Oh, and keep an eye on Westly during this ballot initiative campaign. It won’t be too hard, among other places he’s popping up at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on the 26th for a lunch time speech. Once he was raising eyebrows for supporting Schwarzenegger on the budget deal. Now, it seems, Westly was ahead of the pack, picking up a little bit of traction in what continues to be an interesting – and highly public rivalry – with State Treasurer Phil Angelides. That might look like a fight between two medium-level government wonks but make no mistake, the choices that Schwarzenegger is forcing Democrats to make are choices the party is going to have to make up and down the state and across the country. And, in this first skirmish, well, the traditionalists -- the partisans -- didn’t win. It may be the first time but it won't be the last.
Gov. Terminator is hitting his stride, acting like a real pol. It's a nice show to watch.
First, off to New York City to raise money for the bond initiative, Props. 56 and 57, on the ballot next month. Entry fee to meet the former body builder and retired movie star? As high as $500,000. With that kind of money being tossed around, I’m almost afraid to turn on the television.
Next a meeting in Silicon Valley to chat with movers and shakers there about making it cheaper to do business in California. Opponents of Proposition J, the San Francisco “workforce housing” initiative should be sure to read to the bottom of that story to see how closely the valley links affordable housing and economic prosperity.
In between, an endorsement of a fellow Republican who supports the bond issue – something of a make or break issue for the gov. But a Schwarzenegger advisor (Hi Marty!) says the Gov. isn’t making any more endorsements – a sign that he’s not spreading his popularity too thin. He knows its importance. And that's important.
Now, you’d think that strategic thinking like that, along with his hanging out with New York Governor George Pataki would be enough to make people outside the state think of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a serious Republic Party player. But it looks like it’s going to take a while. But they’ll catch on. Particularly if Propositions 56 and 57 pass. Which, given all that money and star power, they probably will.
Schwarzenegger’s working the move star thing big time. It’s a shrewd and creative use of political capital and it looks like it might work. I hesitate to disagree with Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub in this case, I think he’s making the wrong call on what Gov. Terminator can and can’t do in terms of public support.
If Democratic turn-out is as high here as it’s been in other states, Schwarzenegger could have a tough fight on his hands over the budget stuff. Realizing they don’t have the cash, or for that matter the better arguments, (this link is no longer active) the state’s Democrats are certainly trying to embarrass him into a corner. But, well, the groping, grinning governor isn’t a guy who gets shamed into very much, now is he? Besides, isn’t this the same guy who saved Western Civilization as we know it? Okay, yeah, it was at the movies. But in these days of supposedly spontaneous "wardrobe failure," and disappearing weapons caches who can tell the difference?
It’s hard to look at what’s going on in Sacramento without thinking of Yogi Berra.
It’s deja vue all over again. Only this time, the reporters watching The Terminator are pronouncing themselves pleasantly suprised to see how, um, effective he is.
Schwarzenegger’s budget is tight and mean. Sen. John Burton calls it full of despair. Cities and towns up and down the state are squawking that the money the Governor “returned” last year is now being taken away. Uh. Yeah. This is a man -- a former body builder -- who really understands the meaning of the phrase 'no pain, no gain.'
Experienced Arnoldista Jill Stewart spelled it out last time around. This week, Stewart’s predicting – or is that suggesting? -- that Schwarzenegger will start making nice to Democrats in order to cut a deal. And, she says, Democrats better straighten – or is that belt tighten up – and fly right. Right again.
We’ll see how nice Schwarzenegger is as all this deal-cutting unfolds. There’s plenty of room for negotiation as Schwarzenegger proved with the $2 billion deal he cut with the teachers association; a transaction as unexpected in its financial impact as it has been in its political impact. If he can do that, well, hmmmmm…things could get very interesting. That’s, of course, if they don’t get intensely nasty.
Check out Bee political columnist Dan Weintraub’s analysis of Schwarzenegger’s “State of the State” speech. The Terminator means business – in every sense of the word.
Here’s the most important part:
The centerpiece of the relatively brief address was probably Schwarzenegger’s call for “radical” ideas to overhaul state government. He said he would appoint a commission to oversee a team of civil servants to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the government, examining every program to determine if it is still needed and, if so, whether it can be managed more effectively.
“Every governor proposes moving boxes around to reorganize government,” Schwarzenegger said. “I don’t want to move the boxes around. I want to blow them up.”
Calling the executive branch a “mastodon frozen in time” and “about as responsive,” the governor said he wants to consolidate departments with overlapping responsibilities, abolish boards and commissions that serve no pressing need, and modernize a state purchasing system that he called archaic and expensive. “I plan a total review of government – its performance, its practices, its cost.”
It's getting easier to feel sorry -- really sorry -- for the California State Legislature. Maybe, just maybe, they’re in over their heads with this Arnold muscle-head guy.
Take the recent budget deal, which was analyzed by several smart reporters and pundits. None seemed to have seen the broadside ax – the one that fell on the Assembly’s Republican necks – coming in the “stalled” budget negotiations.
One thing was really clear this weekend: Arnold could care less about fiscally conservative Republicans. When they get his box office star power, he’ll have a problem. Until then, hasta la vista, baby. Some of them are a little slow to get the message. Republican Todd Spitzer delivered this classic to the Chron. You wonder if the reporter burst out laughing half way through.
"The Republican caucus was less than pleased the governor put together a deal without Republicans at the table when the contract was signed," Spitzer said. "We made it clear that we can't continue to do negotiations without us at the table. He said, 'Absolutely, and it won't happen again.' "
It won’t happen again? Hey Todd, wanna buy a bridge? Nice color. Stunning views. For you: Special price.
Kind of amazing, huh, a governor who plays one side off against the other and doesn’t seem too upset about how he gets the job done. Geez. And still manages to get what he wants. In this case, Schwarzenegger took an important step: getting approval for a $15 billion bond measure. First thing, the state’s gotta get its pressing debt reduced so it’s not hanging around like The Ghost of Christmas Past all the while giving the state’s Republicans an excuse to rant and rave about the Democrats who, still, control the Legislature. The bond measure, which appears on the March California ballot (California: we vote seasonally) solves the fiscal and the political problem nicely. And if things get better – and they’re getting betting as I type – that debt might be retired a little earlier.
I don’t want to take all the credit for grasping this obvious point, although the presence of a California budget story on the front page of Saturday’s New York Time was unsettling. No, as is usual almost every Wednesday, the SFWeekly’s Matt Smith (This link is no longer active.) nailed this one very nicely. “What’s been missing,” Smith writes “has been a look at just how canny [Schwarzenegger] was in creating the conditions that ultimately allowed for a compromise inclusive of rabid, anti-tax Republicans and committed, preserve-public-services Democrats.”
Yup. Fasten your seat belts kids. This is gonna be one fun ride ‘cause of this Arnold guy. He knows his business. And right now, that’s politics.
More proof that Tom McClintock still wants to be governor is in today’s WSJ.
Gov. Arnold’s getting it from the right and the left but he doesn’t seem to care. Schwarzenegger’s ability to pick off moderate Democrats is going to be important. It’s, uh, it’s what Bill Clinton used to do. From the other side of the fence, of course. Clinton picked off liberal Republicans.
Besides, the last time the WSJ got on Schwarzenegger's case -- they said he wasn't a real Republican -- it did him a world of good.
They’re smiling over their coffee cups this morning in Atherton.
The Chron has a story on gubernatorial housing – apparently Sac isn’t as full of million dollar gated mansions as, oh, L.A. so Maria and The Terminator – who takes office Monday – is having a hard time finding a place to perch. The Chron says they’ve looked at every mansion on the market.
Well, Atherton, a mere two hours away – less if you have a CHP escort – has plenty of such homes, and it seems the first couple has been having a look at the local real estate. Makes sense, it’s the closest thing to Brentwood north of Pismo Beach. On top of that, it’s Arnold country.
Maria Shriver herself was recently spotted at La Belle, the Stanford Shopping Center’s beauty salon. Shriver doesn’t need the services of LaBelle -- she’s a TV star and undoubtedly has hot and cold running hair stylists. She was hanging at LaBella -- escorted by her buddy and soon-to-be-neighbor, HP CEO Carly Fiorina -- to let everyone she and Arnold are in the neighborhood. It worked, too.
He was leaving Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Wesley Clark campaign. Then he headed for Costa Rica for vacation. But now Donnie Fowler has made a right turn to Sacramento.
Fowler, former VP of Silicon Valley TechNet's Democratic efforts is working on the Schwarzenegger transition. That's not the same as working for the administration. Transitions are all about filling state jobs. But it gives Fowler some influence. So be nice to him.
Plenty of Dems are on the Arnold bandwagon including SF Mayor Willie Brown. But Fowler's got some serious political muscle going for him nationally. His dad, Don Fowler, is the former head of the Democratic National Committee.
This, of course, is the kind of stuff that drives the WSJ editorial board nuts but makes people who voted for Arnold think "Republican in Name Only" (RINO) isn't such a bad deal. Silicon Valley, for one, has always had trouble picking sides.g
Matt Smith's column in this week's SFWeekly recounts some of soon-to-be Sen. Carole Migden's comments about Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Interestingly enough, Migden kinda likes The Terminator-elect. And she seems to think that Democrats in Sacramento are going to do just fine in this new era.
Migden is a hell of a political survivor, a pragmatic pol who hides behind the typical San Francisco Lefty façade. Her remarks come just a few short weeks after Attorney General Bill Lockyer, another Democrat who gets to the bottom line pretty quickly, told a crowd of policy wonks and reporters that he'd voted for Arnold.
Lockyer's admission was startling on a number of levels. More telling was his denunciation of Democratic candidate -- now invisible man -- Cruz Bustamante. Yup. Pols do know pols. And the bad ones do stick out.
But combine Lockyer's critique with Migden's comments about soon to be former Gov. Gray Davis and you've got an interesting move going on with the state's Democrats. Up at The Bee, Dan Weintraub is having a fine time chronicling how Democrats are making nice to the Terminator-elect and vice versa. In Sacramento, they recognize Schwarzenegger's election for what it is: Protest politics. That no one really like Davis, well, that's doesn't hurt.
Migden and Lockyer and the rest are doing what smart pols do, getting in front of the wave while they can, and praying that their timing is good. It remains to be seen how high and how far it will take them. But this new spirit -- can we call it decency? After all they're giving the guy a chance -- feels a little different.
Right now.
It's gonna matter.
GO VOTE. I did. I'm not even there.
Could Total Recall be a total bust?
The good people of Hillsborough are an indication that it just might.
Arnold's apology dominated the New York tabs last week. I'm telling you, there's no place like home.
This is so cool.
It's a flash bot put together by the LATime's photo desk. They've taken pictures of a bunch of Total Recall candidates. The ones who aren't famous along, of course, with the few who are. And they're going to update it.
There weren't any big winners in last night's Total Recall debate. Between Arnold and Arianne and Cruz all yapping at each other, it was hard to hear what was actually said. The Bee has transcripts and audio so you can hear it via the 'net over and over and over again.
One did stand out clearly. Republican Tom McClintock who more and more seems to have his eye on the 2006 governors race (are you watching, Mr. Westly?). McClintock got national exposure for his candidacy. If he doesn't win this time around, he's well positioned for the next race.
You say he don't know policy. Read the Wall Street Journal. Arnold's conversation with California's business community has resumed.
Just in time for him to go on TV and prove he's a smart guy.
Oh, and Matt Drudge has found cache of nudie Arnold shots. Where do you think those came from? Davis' oppo? or McClintock's people?
Intermission is over. Total Recall continues. The next action adventure? Tomorrow night's candidate debate in which Arnold Schwarzenegger will participate.
In the meantime, Darryl Issa, the guy who bankrolled pre-production, is saying he wants some revisions to the script. If two Republicans are in the race, people should vote "no." In other word's he's endorsed Gov. Gray Davis.
Will there be a court ruling on this one, too? Or shall we just go to the playground after school and duke it out?
For those who would like to rise above the bickering, the WashPo's David Broder takes all the they-say, we-say predictions from the various campaigns and boils 'em all down to something that looks like common sense. Davis may take this thing, particularly now that he's got Issa's vote.
Camp Total Recall -- the moving band of TV satellite trucks -- has established a beachhead around the courthouse at 7th and Mission. Count on afternoon traffic jams as everyone who can hold a pen or a microphone goes for that stand-up on the courthouse steps.
Meanwhile, The Bee's Dan Weintraub is pointing legal eagles to "How Appealing," a site dedicated to, believe it or not, appellate court actions like the one going on today in the 9th Circuit.
The dust is starting to settle from the Ninth Circuit "surprise" ruling earlier in the week and today the LATimes does a fine job of summing it all up and looking ahead at the political ramifications.
There's lots of speculation on exactly how the court's ruling -- and the rulings or decisions not to rule yet to come -- will play out but it's looking as though Gov. Gray Davis has caught a break. Either way the courts rule, Democrats are fired up, way up, and that's good for Davis.
Maureen Dowd says as much as she lets former Ueberroth campaign manager Dan Schnur provide the smarty-pants remark about Davis' good fortune.
Schnur lives for moments like this; let's help him savor it.
The election might be put off but the campaigning hasn't stopped.
Maria Shriver aka Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to San Francisco next week to give a speech she's calling "Ten Things You Should Know about Arnold," at the Commonwealth Club. "The Democrat of Kennedy lineage will share her thoughts on her Republican husband's mission and address the current backlash that has surfaced against him," the Club says in its announcement.
That's the backlash of women voters who wonder about Arnold's trash-taking, ass-grabbing way with women.
It'll cost you $10 if you’re a member; $20 if you're not.
Alternatively, you could just keep reading Doonesbury. Today's comic is called "High-end Hooters."
A few weeks ago, when Total Recall looked like the sleeper hit of the summer, The Bee's Dan Weitraub said the only voter polls predicting the outcome of the race worth seeing are election day exit polls. In other words, he ain't calling this thing until is over.
Smart man. The fat lady isn't on stage. She ain't even in the theater. The Ninth Circuit, on the other hand, has decided that Total Recall should -- depending on your perspective -- either be canceled all together or postponed until March.
That's March as in the California Primary. Meaning Californian's would vote for a governor and a presidential candidate at the same time. And they would campaign here at the same time. And you thought the madness couldn't end.
Weintraub said today that he thinks voters will be pissed off by the 9th Circuit ruling. Unlikely. More likely, they'll just move on -- way on, way fast -- to whatever's next. Just in time: Scott Peterson's trial for the murder of his wife starts late next month; some brainiac in Modesto was probably eyeing the gross receipts tax potential.
Total Recall participants, according to the LATimes, haven't broken stride since the court ruled today. They know the deal. This thing ain't over until the U.S. Supreme Court rules. That'll be after the entire 9th Circuit gets to have it say, probably be oh, just about this time next week.
Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and her husband taped an interview with Oprah in which they discussed that famously crude Oui interview A.S. gave way back when. It was all fantasy, says the body builder, who is appears to be channeling Mickey Kaus.
Gary Trudeau gets the last word on that, however.
And continues....
Total Recall can't end -- there's too much comedy, er, make that post-satire, left to explore.
Bill Clinton's in California stumping for Gray Davis. He started down in LA at an AME church where Bill got to pour on the 'hey, baby' accent and do a little preachin'
For those of you who aren't savvy to religious or Southern regional politics, AME stands for African Methodist Church, which was started 'cause the mostly white Methodists didn't want any black folks in the congregations.
Clinton, according to the NYTimes used the story of "Jesus and the harlot," to talk about why California Gov. Gray Davis should be tossed out. That's the one with the line about people without sin throwing stones. This is fact, not fiction. The NYTime story, which observed that Clinton knew a little about sinning, was not written by Jason Blair.
On Sunday, Dean Murphy did a fine job detailing the reality of what Clinton predicted would happen should Davis be kicked out. It's the standard "Be Careful What You Wish For" warning but it does have some interesting things to say about the consequences of Total Recall. In a word, it'll be mass confusion which probably won't help anything.
In the meantime, more Democrats are coming to Davis' side, a bit more evidence that Total Recall is going badly for the still-divided Republican Party.
Andrew Sullivan's comments about Arnold Schwarzenegger's homo-tolerance -- discussed at some length in a Matt Welch piece for the National Post -- raises an intriguing question: How well will the Terminator do below Market Street?
San Francisco's gay community is becoming increasingly conservative; that's conservative, not moderate. There are plenty of liberal gays out there. As Welch points out, litmus test Liberal like Assemblyman Mark Leno can always be counted on to talk about homophobia as soon as a straight person utters the word "fag." But, more and more, the city's gay community isn't as closely aligned with Lefty causes as it once was.
This isn't lost on mayoral candidate Tom Ammiano. It's one reason he's move steadily right over the past few months. Organizations like Plan C, the Castro/Noe Valley neighborhood organization that's fast becoming a citywide civic association of young property-owning tech types, has its roots in the gay community. Once of Plan C's least favorite pols? Leno himself for putting limits on a conversion process that would allow more people in the city to buy their apartments.
The Bay Area, as a whole, has polled well below the rest of the state in supporting Total Recall. But that's only the first part of the ballot. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's time to choose a candidate.
IN BOX: Plan C Chairman Mike Sullivan writes in to correct my impression of the heated tension betwen his members and Mark Leno. "I have to disagree with you that Mark Leno is Plan C's 'least favorite' politician. He may win the 'most disappointing vote' award for his vote to effectively ban tenancies in common (fortunately, the law that passed with that vote was tossed out by the courts). But I can think of a lot of better candidates for the 'least favorite" title.'
The LATimes has the perfect remedy for those of you -- those of us -- who are getting a little sick of Total Recall. When will this movie end?
The LAT has a list of frequently asked questions, an FAQ, on the race. It includes fill-in-the-blank cliches for political writers (always handy) as well as the rather interesting observation that Cruz Bustamante and The Jetson's Mr. Spacely may have been separated at birth.
There can't be enough websites dedicated to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Terminator has broad shoulders. He can carry them all.
There's the official A.S. site. It's not too bad. It has all the stuff you'd expect from a candidate who can afford a good smart web design team.
The dark side of the Schwarzenegger campaign seems to be the responsibility of a site put together by some Silicon Valley Repubicans slaving over a couple of keyboards down in Saratoga.
The "Who is Cruz?" section doesn't exactly go against A.S. promise not to engage in smear tactics -- and with Gov. Gray Davis making fun of his accent, he doesn't have to -- but it comes close. Of course, there's deniability. That's how this game is played. "Arnold for Governor," is independent of the official campaign.
But no on-line campaign would be complete without the snarky humor of left-learning wise acres who can code. They have a catchy slogan, though, "Policy is for Pussies" that does a nice job of mocking Schwarzenegger's 'no details' approach to vote gathering. Oh, yeah, and there's swag, too, including -- gasp! -- Gore campaign stuff.
Time magazine's Joe Klein has the best description yet of Presidential hopeful and Democratic front-runner Dr. Howard Dean.
"Dean turns out to be a flagrantly political anti-politician," Klein says.
Which would explain why Dean, unlike the rest of the Democratic pack, has not qualms about standing next to Gov. Gray Davis. If you want to be president, you need California.
It's a gamble but if it pays off, it's going to go a long way toward helping Dean scoop up the Democratic nomination. Davis may be a churlish jerk. But, if he can, he'll repay this favor. So will the state's unions.
It's an interesting confluence, this Dean-Davis thing, coming as it does days after MoveOn.org -- the powerful on-line grassroots website the rival's candidate Dean's Internet efforts -- decided to stir up support for a 'no' recall vote.
Now, I'd be the last person to accuse the MoveOn crowd of engaging in a little politics as usual, backroom sleight of hand. But that's some mighty loud quacking coming from the Berkeley hills.
The Left? Organized?
The LATimes reprints Micheal Kinsley's daft essay on Arnold Schwarzenegger's "disgusting" sex life and in Santa Monica, women's groups have gathered to protest. "No Groper for Governor,'' says the placard in today's Chron.
Confusing, isn't it?
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a running as a Republican. The party that opposes liberalization of abortion rights, a party that came up with the label "femi-nazi," a party that tends to attract guys like A.S. or guys who want to be like A.S. Red blooded, meat-eating, cigar-smoking, martini-drinking swaggerers who wear lots of loud jewelry, drive big, gas-guzzling four-by-whathaveyous and talk down to everyone tend not to be Howard Dean supporters. They believe the world is a cruel hard place and that people should live with their decisions, regardless of how foolish they may have been. Women are women and men are in charge, gee, baby, life is unfair.
Groped a movie-magazine interviewer? Went of a tour or Rio's Carnival with a scantily clad dancer? Had group sex with a bunch of other body builders? Or just fantasized about it with a porn mag writer? Hard to believe, huh? Arnold Schwarzeneger, according to those who knew him when he was Mr. Universe, was a crude, not very subtle but very ambitious guy. The accounts we have of his behavior reinforce that image. And he probably hasn't changed very much, he's just gotten better at keeping his mouth shut and his hands to himself.
But his sex life doesn't really have that much to do with his fitness to be governor, does it? We're already well down that slippery slope. Bill Clinton's affairs with various interns, secretaries, bar girls, nightclub singers and on and on and on didn't have anything to do with his ability to be president. So why are we talking about A.S.'s sex life as a young body-builder?
It's the wrong conversation all the way around.
What does matter in considering Clinton as a leader is the calculated, class-conscious way in which he and his staff of prudes reacted to allegations of his marital infidelity. They attacked the women involved as lower-class, meaning they were sluts anyway, or as irrationally sexually obsessed, meaning they were sluts anyway, or they just winked and said, well, she's a slut anyway. The Clinton people launched deliberate campaigns to demean women who had sex with Bill Clinton for being women who had admitted to having sex and were willing to talk about it because, of course, women who talk about sex are sluts anyway. The press ate it up. With a spoon.
It wasn't until Monica Lewinsky -- a woman who came from the same social class as Hillary Clinton's wealthy, white suburban background -- that Clinton got stopped in his tracks. A young girl form Beverly Hills where shopping and fucking are acceptable hobbies for her socio-economic cohort, Lewinsky was perfectly happy to be doing the president. It was her idea. She knew a good time when she saw one. She's probably still not gotten over the condemnation for wearing thong underwear from the supposedly liberal media mafia and their compatriots in the Democratic party.
There has been lots of talk about how Schwarzenegger's people hushed up his crude behavior, a sort of typical Hollywood pamper-the-star stuff. But, so far, A.S. hasn't said anything about being misquoted, he hasn't tried to allege that any of the groped reporters were mentally unbalanced groupies, coming on to him to take advantage of his stardom. No, A.S. has managed to keep his mouth shut. What happened, happened.
His behavior is repellent. But his quiet acknowledgment of what's gone before is refreshingly honest and, for once, mature.
IN-BOX: David Yomtov writes in and provides a link to the Premier magazine article.
"It predates Schwarzenegger's policital ambitions (or at least his openly admitted ambitions)," says Yomtov. The interesting thing is that he threatens to sue anyone who raises these allegations....These stories are much more telling,,,than what I've been seeing repeated. They demonstrate a callous disrespect for persons working 'below' him."
The NYTimes' Dean Murphy has a story in today's paper talking about Gov. Gray Davis' chances of keeping his job. He's not joking. The Republican ticket is split.
It raises an interesting question: What if Davis wins? What if the Total Recall is a Total Failure?
With MoveOn's participation in the recall - Wes, what took you so long? - it's getting to be a distinct possibility. That comes on top of union organizing for the Dem's.
MoveOn launched its program to collection 100,000 pledges against the recall on Wednesday. On Friday morning, they had more than 69,000 supporters.
So, as improbable as it may seem, let's have a look at the consequences of a Davis victory:
First of all, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante gets sent to a woodshed somewhere north of Alaska.
Democrats start looking very strong for 2004. California becomes an even more important primary state. The party will have proved it can organize against a powerful and well-financed Republican effort.
DiFi looks very good for Governor in 2004 when Davis hits the term limits wall.
Annoyingly, Davis' political ambitions will be revived. Although it'll be smoke and mirrors -- no one likes the guy and you can only get so far in politics if people don't like you -- there will be lots of talk about what Davis can do nationally.
But in the state, Davis will have a real-live-honest-to-God mandate for change. It's sad, but it's hard to think of what he do with all that power, besides, of course, try to position himself for a presidential race.
Aside: Hard-core party loyalists are saying that Total Recall is un-democratic. It's not, particularly if you consider the ways in which recalls and initiative get on the ballot. But as soon as they win, this same crowd will use the tremendous turn-out and their victory to talk about mandates. Just watch.
There will definitely be another Terminator movie as A.S.'s political career goes on hiatus. Maria will go back to NBC. Tom McClintock will start his 2004 campaign for governor, making it even more likely that DiFi will run -- she'll win.
A large voter turn out on Oct. 7 has one interesting implication. It will make state-wide ballot initiatives go away.
The number of signatures needed to get a question put on the ballot is based on a percentage of voter turn-out from the last gubernatorial election. So if lots of people turn out, it gets harder to get referenda put on the ballot. Right now, the number is just about 700,000 (according to the lawyer I had lunch with yesterday).
Now, if we could just get rid of term limits…
There's lots of coverage out there about the debates and Total Recall. They're all good stories that say pretty much the same thing. Pick one, if you still care. Read it.
The story of the day is a Wall Street Journal piece about California's woes. We are not alone in our restive discontent with the political process, says the WSJ. The ground is shifting in favor of guys who can and do run outside the system -- the ones who could care less.
Over at Slate, Michael Kinsley and Mickey Kaus are going at it over Arnold Schwarzenegger's now-controversial Oui magazine interview.
This is the one where Arnold, then a stoner weight-lifter and 29-year-old documentary movie star, talks trash about the size of his penis (judge for yourself) and his participation in a gang-bang.
Kaus says A.S. made it all up to impress the interviewer who, after all, was writing for a porn mag. Kinsley says even if that's true, it's still gross.
This is what political commentary has come to and it's ridiculous. Kaus is apologizing for Schwarzenegger which is something the Austrian Iron Man isn't even bothering to do for himself. And Kinsley is just demonstrating the prudery that characterizes much of the working political press by saying it's not what they think -- it's what they think their readers think -- that matters in these sorts of discussions. You know what? Readers are getting tired of people telling them what they think they think.
Like the strong-willed egomaniac that he is -- how do you think he got where he is? -- Schwarzenegger's certainly hasn't bothered to worry about what the press thinks about him. That's why he could give a damn about some trash talk 30 years go. It's why he's skipping debates. It's an interesting tactic -- and it may not work -- but it's almost refreshing.
The only other guy doing this is Howard Dean. Dean could give a damn about what anyone holding a pen thinks of him. And, well, that's working too, isn't it?
Remember that terrorist betting market the Pentagon was putting together? The idea was that a group, assessing the odds of an attack, would come up with a good sense of its probability. The government-sponsored pool (overseen by the politically tone-deaf John Poindexter) is gone 'cause people thought it was creepy to have the government sponsoring death bets. Creepiness never stood in the way of a dollar. Plenty of private efforts are still around.
But why stop with terrorism when you can bet on Total Recall? Iowa Electronic Markets has a pool up and running. Guess who's winning? Oh, and did we mention these things have proven to be remarkably accurate?
It's Arnold.
UPDATE: Then again, maybe it's Cruz Control. In yet another example of how the Internet fills in for the Psychic Friends Network, Dan Weintraub posted a link to these pool results showing Lt. Gov Cruz Bustamante gaining ground.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
Lt. Gov. and Gov. candidate Cruz Bustamante's approach when it comes to corporate interests isn't helping his party or his own cause. Want to get cynical? Keep reading that soon-to-be-ex Gov. Davis handbook, particularly that section where you borrow from Peter to screw Paul.
Bustamante is criticizing the state's businesses saying they can do more to help. He's probably right.
But it's hard to avoid thinking that by "help," Bustamante means "contribution," something along the lines of the $2 million he's getting from a San Diego Indian tribe -- technically a sovereign nation -- that just happens to be in the casino business.
This is another facet of the left's dilemma. Big money -- the kind needed for TV ads, vital to any campaign -- can only come from a few places.
As only the English can, a reporter from the UK Guardian starts with monkey bottoms and ends with Mary Carey as he discusses Total Recall
"It's not about left and right, it's about right and wrong,'' Arianna Huffington says in her TV ads, which began airing last night.
Instead of the candidate, who is running for governor as an Independent progressive, the spots feature a cube -- a box! -- emblazoned with the word 'vote.' Thinking outside the box, get it? To Silicon Valley types, the box is going to look like a pale gray (Gray! Get it?) version of the old Next logo. To others it might look a bit like the monolith from Kubrick's 2001. Pick your icon; they're all up for grabs.
The box -- it's a ballot box -- will be toted on Arianna's (natural gas powered) bus as it makes its way to various California college campuses. Already Huffington supporters are working on ways to put all that free, parental-supported labor to work.
Until big labor said it would throw its support -- and, more importantly, its cash -- behind Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's gubenatorial candidacy, there wasn't a whole lot to say about Total Recall. And even that news isn't exactly earth-shattering: Labor supports Democrats. My God. The Shock.
It's August. The last week in August. And apart from a somewhat suspect LATimes poll released over the weekend, there's just not a lot of news out there. That, of course, isn't going to stop any one from writing. It might, however, stop people from reading.
The Bee's Dan Weitraub says What Needs To Be Said right here. Until next week, everything else by almost everyone else is hot air. But Weibtraub makes an important point worth bearing in mind over the next few weeks about the vagaries of polling, particularly as more and more new voters register to cast their ballots on Oct. 7.
"Telephone polling itself has become problematic in the age of cell phones, call-waiting and answering machines, and because this race, with its unique format and multi-candidate field, is going to be extremely difficult to assess," Weintraub writes. "The only poll I really want to see is the exit poll, which will interview voters as they leave the polls and should tell us a lot about who votes and why, and why they voted the way they did. Until then, I’m not going to believe anything I read, from any of them."
Amen.
It's really August but Cindy Adams, The NYPost's gossip queen is on the case.
Here are her prediction on Maria Shriver as California's First Lady.
And a bunch of dumb, but printable, Arnold jokes.
The Bee's Dan Weintraub called it a solid week ago. Total Recall is now a race between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
Bustamante's got the unions getting out his votes. Arnold, well, Arnold's The Terminator.
Links to all the stories you'd ever want to read at up at The Note. Particularly worth reading are the LATimes complete run-down on Bustamante's growing support -- even from Davis -- as well as the charming (if you overlook the football metaphors) profile of Bustamante that Dean Murphy did in the NYTimes.
There's a growing feeling out there that Arnold Schwarzengger is in a race, not a cakewalk, with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante at his heels.
It's enough of a sense that San Francisco's liberal Democrats, a quarreling bunch, even on good days, might have felt the need to behave themselves. And it's put instant run-off voting, the story that wouldn't die, into a deep coma.
Federal judge Jim Warren ruled Wednesday and sided with the city's decision not to use the new voting counting in the November election. That night, beleagured Elections Commission chairwoman Alix Rosenthal got to keep her job.
The always lively (in typesetting alone) Joe Fire gets it about right when he says that all the attention focused on Rosenthal's possible ouster led to her keeping the job. So much attention was focused on the pressure that mayoral candidates were putting on the commission to support run-off voting -- pressure that involved pushing IRV opponent Rosenthal out of the top slot -- that putsch died under its own weight. Anti-Rosenthalers managed to round up only two votes.
Clearly, someone didn't count quite right. Funny, that. But never underestimate the ability of politicians to think about themselves and their reputations before all else. And, come October and November, that's what's going to be on the line.
San Francisco voters are the least supportive of Total Recall, lagging some parts of the state by as much as 10 points. Meaning the city, as a Democratic stronghold with a strong cadre of union-strengthened voters, stands a very good chance of being very important when the votes are tallied.
So, imagine an election staff so distracted by changes in leadership -- if Rosenthal had gone, elections chief John Arntz was threatening to go, too, and his staff was talking about a sick-out -- had to tally Total Recall. Imagine if, well, imagine if they didn't do a good job. Again. With the international press corps, the Republican and Democratic party infrastructures (and their lawyers) all looking on.....
Can you say media circus? Sure you can. Bring in the clowns.
Schwarzenegger supporters in Silicon Valley are getting ready to open their wallets at a fundraiser scheduled for Sept. 22. It'll be a zoo. They love Arnold in Silicon Valley. He's their kind of guy: A hummer, a couple self-made million and a big airplane.
For those of you with a spare $20,000 to contribute (each) on top of the $1,000 for the public reception, there's dinner at Tim and Melissa Draper's Atherton home. Met the $21,200 max and you get another dinner, after the election, with the Austrian Iron Man himself.
Tim's name should be familiar. He dropped millions two years ago on a ballot initiative to permit school vouchers. Now he's using his good friend Tony Perkins' AlwaysOn Network to promote their joint political cause: Arnold.
"Arnold needs our financial assistance today,'' Draper writes at AlwaysOn. He's going to get it.
Oh, those of you following the inside baseball on this stuff (you know who you are) will remember that it was AlwaysOn sponsor Salesforce.com that brought Schwarzenegger to San Francisco back in July for his first post-recall, pre-announcement appearance. It was billed as a T3 promotion. It wasn't. Draper was at that party, too.
Wanna know what the recall ballot will really look like.
Here's your chance. It's kinda scary.
The poll "results" are skewed, of course, since visitors to the site are self-selected, mostly liberal Democrats. The rest, well, it's crap. But at least you're warned ahead of time.
It is far too late for soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Gray Davis to convince anyone but the party faithful that he truly is a victim of a giant right-wing conspiracy.
But if he or any other California Democrat were to make that case convincingly, they might start by reading this piece in the UK Guardian. It's an attack on one of the most dearly loved of Republican Party principles, the belief that governments can and should pay private companies to do their work for them. As they say in Silicon Valley, it's a criticism that scales, all the way from energy politics to the U.S. Army's woes in Iraq.
The Guardian's US correspondent, Julian Borger, smartly talks about California's energy woes as an foreshadowing, not a contrast, to the Great Northeastern Blackout of '03. Davis didn't take that path when he spoke yesterday. In fact, the Davis administration has either been unwilling or unable to come up with any sort of decent arguments about exactly how they've been manhandled by the Republicans. It's not for lack of material -- has anyone noticed how the Department of the Interior keeps restricting the amount of water the state can pull from the Colorado River? -- so it's got to be for lack of trying.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh says Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't a Republican, assuring him of even more votes from that squishy moderate center that's disgusted with Davis and afraid of guys like real Republican conservative Bill Simon.
Arnold's TV ads are scheduled to start today. But don't get excited. Not yet. Because the Lone Ranger of Underdog Political Advertising has signed up for Total Recall.
Bill Hillsman, the man who brought you Jesse "The Mind" Ventura and Paul Wellstone's now-famous "Looking for Rudy" ads -- ads credited with assuring both of those upset victories -- has signed on to help Arianna Huffington.
Hillsman runs clean, smart clever ads. No more of this guy-in-a-tie, looking in the camera and smiling stuff that California pols seem to think makes them dynamic, smart and sincere. Instead, they look staged, nervous and tired.
That's not what you'll see from the Huffington campaign. "She's not a man. She won't wear a tie,'' said Huffington spokeman Parker Blackman. "We want to have fun with it."
Hillsman, who's motto is more like "what box?" than "think outside the box," could go a long way to strengthen Huffington's hand as a Schwarzenegger spoiler.
"If you don't do something out of the ordinary, it's going to be inexpensive and ineffectual,'' he once told The Washington Monthly.
Well, let's just say that the bar is already pretty high.
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Gray Davis don't get along. Best lede is in the Bee:
"Any pretense that Gov. Gray Davis and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante are united in their fight against the recall vanished Sunday when the lieutenant governor went on national television and accused Davis of undermining his bid to give voters a Democratic replacement if the recall succeeds."
It's a two-man race, at least in the polls taken last week, The Merc tells you why. At least for now. These numbers are going jump around. A lot.
The President of the United States of America is a bit peeved to find his efforts at re-election upstaged by an Austrian body builder and movie star.
There's a funny little recall undertow out there among women of a certain age and, well, a certain class. Arianna Huffington is their girl. They're going to vote for her.
This isn't a huge group -- upper middle class volunteers, women who can afford to stay home, to lounge around the pool -- what used to be called 'ladies who lunch.' These are women very much like Huffington herself, involved, concerned, but not party loyal, the kind who are married to businessmen like Peter Ueberroth and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If this keeps up, Huffington will be able to draw votes away from Republicans who might normally get these women's votes, women who didn't know who Cruz Bustamante was until they heard about his spat with Davis. And while, the effect isn't going to be huge, it gives Huffington some small leverage in this race. And, of course, it's going to make for some interesting cocktail party chatter.
So it's no wonder Huffington's doing an interview today with KPFA.
As expected, Warren Buffett has told the Wall Street Journal that he thinks Prop. 13 is unfair. He bases this among other things, on the $12,000 difference he pays in property taxes in California and Nebraska. The lower bill, about $2,300, is for his Laguna Beach property.
California Insider Dan Weintraub offers up the usual political bromides saying that yes, maybe, it's time Prop 13 were amended. But, as is often the case when political reporters talk to businessmen, he misses the point. More and more, Total Recall is not about politics; Total Recall is about reforming politics as it's currently practiced in California and elsewhere.
As part of that strategy, Buffett's job is to suggest, as only he can, that California's tax structure is broken and needs fixing. He's not speaking to the average homeowner, but to the state's business community. He's calling on their sense of fairness as only he, a self-made billionaire who wants to pay higher taxes, can. Besides, to address Weintraub's worries, once you have agreement on tax reform, it's not that hard to legislate protections for low-income and elderly homeowners. Florida, for example, does it with a 'homestead' exemption that protects your primary residence but not your million dollar beach house or the office park down the street.
There's something else going on here: Schwarzenegger has positioned himself as the anti-politician but, so far, he's demonstrated some pretty shrewd and sophisticated maneuvering. It's leaving most of the state's political know-it-alls scratching their heads.
The NYPost makes the usual joke about considerable assets. See why. courtesy of Daniel Radosh by way of Naughty Nicky Denton.
The best person to tell you about Warren Buffett is Bill Gates. But Gates is kind of hard to get a hold of.
Luckily, the second best person to tell you about Warren Buffet is a business reporter, Fortune writer Carol Loomis. The two are pals. She even helps edit Berkshire Hathaway's annual report to shareholders.
So, if you want to gauge the effect that Buffett will have at Schwarzenegger Central, take a look at her reporting. And make no mistake, this is a serious thing, this Buffett advisory role. There are way too many formal statements, press leaks and other quasi-official positioning maneuvers to think otherwise.
Loomis had a now-famous talk with Buffett about cleaning up Solomon Bros., the investment bank that was crippled by scandal in the 1980s. And their interview about the stock market in 2001 is worth a look.
If you're not already a subscriber, Fortune will make you pay to read these articles. But, if you really want to measure the Arnold effect, it's probably worth the money. Because it's looking like A.S. is going to be the businessman's candidate. And in California as we know it now -- particularly Northern California and Silicon Valley -- a business-like approach to politics is baked into the soil. Remember, they grow Libertarians here.
The Oracle of Omaha likes clear, straight-forward accounting and bookkeeping. He thinks rich people should carry their fair share and that's not a euphemism for reducing corporate taxes. He likes the estate tax. He thinks the Bush Administration's tax cuts were a bad idea. He's big on public accountability. That's why the companies he runs are run well. They're run clean. They're run fair.
With Buffett signed on, the Schwarzenegger/Wilson camp has got to be looking at an overhaul of the state's tax system. California's tax code is everything Buffett hates. It's confusing. It's arbitrary and, more importantly, it does not work. It's reliance on sales and income taxes is regressive and short-sighted. Among other things, it encourages commercial development and discourages housing construction. The paltry amounts of money the state is able to raise in property taxes go to Sacramento and disappear in the haze. The reliance on piecemeal bond issues to do things like pay for school construction is ridiculous. And that's before you consider the shell game accounting that was used to construct this year's state budget. California the feel of a semi-corrupt down-at-the-heels former colony, not the world's fifth-largest economy and, for the most part, its tax structure is to blame.
Two men who would be president are advising the top two contenders in the Guv's race. The NYTimes says Bill Clinton is whispering sweet things in Gray Davis' ear. The Chron say Pete Wilson is advising Schwarzenegger. And the LATimes says A.S. has replaced some of his advisors with former Wilson aides. That's not a surprise to careful readers.
Mo Dowd says blogging is so over, giving the alt.news technology another shot in the arm. Do you think she read fellow op-ed columnist Paul Krugman on-line?
And Dashing Dick Morris finds the connection between Arnold and Howard Dean in today's NYPost. Now it's safe to call it a trend.
Meanwhile, The Note does a fine and comprehensive job of rounding up all the Total Recall stories that are fit to read.
Gray Davis isn't the only worrisome Democrat in California.
Today's Chron carries comments from State Democratic Chairman Art Torres in which he compares the Republican party to the mafia using that old horse head in the bed image.
Hey, Art, these days when you want to make mafia references, you use The Sopranos. It's about time someone compared GOP strategic mastermind Karl Rove to the scheming Livia Soprano.
Secondly, Art, using mafia references isn't, well, it isn't very fair-minded now is it? California AG Bill Lockyer has already warned Davis about his underhanded
Continue reading "The Worried Well" »
SoCal blogger Mickey Kaus gets his wish and the LATimes writes a story about Prop. 187, immigration and the Recall.
That story makes no reference to a much-overlooked detail in last week's alarmist headlines about people fleeing the state. Most of those who left were leaving for economic reasons and most of them were Latino and most of them moved to Texas. In other words, they could be the very same people who registered to vote because of Prop. 187. They're not here anymore. And some of those who are but were born elsewhere might like Schwarzenegger. .
There's no question that there has been tremendous churn in NoCal's population since 1994. In a weird way that might be responsible for some of Gray Davis' problem. Many of those who want to throw him out didn't vote for him in the first place so the argument about "process" doesn't get much traction.
Living up to it's California Insider billing, Dan Weintraub has some smart things to say about the Recall which he thinks might turn into a real contest --instead of the free-for-all everyone is predicting -- between Cruz Bustamante and A.S. What are they fighting over? Voters who haven't gone to the polls before.
If he's right about how the race will play out -- and his logic seems sound -- that's one good reason why immigration hasn't become the issue the Mickey Kaus seems to want it to become. With the son of Mexican immigrants competing with an Austrian immigrant (married into the Irish Diaspora's most famous American family) and a Greek intellectual as unofficial head of the peanut gallery, it's going to be hard for anyone to call for the kind of border control that Kaus thinks necessary.
More and more, Californian are coming from outside the country -- and not just illegally and not just from Mexico -- and immigration controls are being seen as a silly nuisance that muck up people's lives unnecessarily. Silicon Valley's larger companies run on Indian engineering. Its households on Mexican and Fillipino labor. The recall ballot's being printed in seven different languages and in San Francisco, the number of registered voters who moved her from other countries is headed toward 25 percent.
Who's going to call for "border control" under those circumstances? No one should. The state runs on immigrant labor of all kinds. And it's about time that state of affairs was not just recognized but welcomed.
The LA Times says 158. The Merc says 155. The Chron says 125.
So, exactly, how many people are running for governor?
Best out-of-state lede on the Arnold news comes from the Washington Post's self-consciously arch Style section:
"The special effect known as Arnold Schwarzenegger has just told Jay Leno (which is the same as telling America, nowadays) that he's decided to accept the starring role in yet another way over budget movie with "Recall" in the title, rocketing into the race to become governor of California in the statewide vote to decide the fate of current Gov. Gray Davis".
The story goes on in that vein for a bit more than necessary. The WashPo runs stories like this in the Style section so they can tell us what they_really think.
The Best in-state lede goes to The Chron's Salladay:
"Arnold Schwarzenegger just sucked all the air out of California's political establishment."
Indeed.
Most under-appreciated Schwarzenegger comment to Jay Leno, a passing reference to all those rumors about Schwarzenegger womanizing:
"Larry Flint is going to make me shine."
He has a point.
Rumors coming from the direction where Richard Riordan might have been standing when the Arnold news broke indicate that perhaps "stunned" as the LATimes has it, isn't the right word for the former mayor and now, it seems, newspaper publisher's reaction. Give Riordan yet another excuse to rail against the Times, too.
Maybe, just maybe, Riordan and A.S.'s other political buddy, former Gov. Pete Wilson were cheering A.S. on? His entry has completely changed the race in favor of the Republicans. And the delay probably played a role in DiFi's deciding absolutely positively not to run. It's a political, not to mention media-handler masterstroke.
In any case, the Arnoldleakers should be looking for new jobs soon. Getting ahead of your man is the first sin of politics. Think there might be some shuffling between what would have been the Riorden campaign (by way of the chatty ex-Wilson team) and the old A.S. staff in the next day or so?
I'm with Mickey Kaus on the typing of Schwarzenegger. MK calls the Viennesse Iron Man "A.S." And Kaus doesn't have the(obvious) problem I do with spelling.
Just for yucks read The (U.K.) Guardian on Arianna Huffington, "the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus."
Arnold's in.
Every political pundit in the state is out.
Out pounding the phone to ask their sources what -- exactly -- happened. The LATimes and The Bee's Blooger Weintraub will have the goods in the morning.
In the meantime, Mickey Kaus has some smart stuff. Snookered indeed! But snookered with an audience of millions.
In keeping with the increasingly carnival-like atmosphere, it's time to think of 'barker' names for those in the running. There's the Viennese Iron Man, the Greek Lady, the Car Thief, the Swag Queen who is selling thong underwear....
It's a national story now so the very best round up for stories and comment on the recall can be found, not too surprisingly, at the ABC News site, The Note.
Today, channeling NYT columnist, Maureen Dowd, the Notesters do some speculating about former LA Mayor Richard Riorden and the chance that he'll enter the race. Since Riorden said he'd think about running if Schwarzenneger didn't and since Schwarzenneger probably isn't running and since so many people who would work for both men are saying they're working for Riorden, it's pretty safe to assume that Riorden is, indeed, running.
The Riorden candidacy is interesting on a number of fronts. One, of course is his not-so-subtle reluctance to take the job. That could be a sign that he's interested in running a short term coalition-style government aimed at cleaning up the state's most pressing problem, its economic woes. And that means doing something, anything at this point, about California's tax structure. It's going to take a Republican to get past that 2/3 majority required to pass a state budget. But there are other problems -- Prop 13 is a big one -- that Republicans are best suited to resolve. It's like Nixon in China.
Some of the most interesting and thought provoking stories about the Davis recall continue to come from outside the state. David Broder makes some interesting points in a column he wrote for the Washington Post last week.
In addition to talking frankly about how the state's (and cities') ballot initiative process has been corrupted by big money politics, Broder also talks about California's bizarre tax system. He places much of the blame for Davis' surge in unpopularity on the state's budgeting and issues and issues the usual warning about how whatever happens in California is too bizarre to even contemplate and probably means the end of civilization as we know it…
Okay, that's an exaggeration. But Broder and a lot of other commentators seem to keep gliding by an important point. Davis' popularity first fell when the lights went out. During the state's energy crisis, the Bush White House didn't lift a finger to help the state. Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed the state's pleas for help saying that the state's environmentalists -- Republican code word for lunatic tree hugger -- were blocking construction of power plants to serve the state's businesses. It wasn't until the Republican governors of the surrounding states all warned the White House of the danger -- they, too, could run out of juice -- that the Bush folks took the state's power woes seriously.
There's a bit of historical context that's missing, too. although NYTimes columnist, Paul Krugman, gets close. California's government is the living, voting example of the model first celebrated, here then nationally, by Ronald Reagan: Government is off people's backs. It's also, for the most part, out of their lives. Californians have little contact with their local or state government and when they do, it's because something doesn't work (schools), something that shouldn't be built (a monster house) or something that cost too much (electricity). It's confrontational because, among other reasons, few cities and states have the money or the staff to do what government should do: Look ahead, plan and yes, even spend money to prevent things from happening. The average tax payer walks away with a bad taste in his or her mouth thinking, 'I pay money for this?' Their disenchantment and cynicism grows with every distasteful encounter. Some of that thinking is at the heart of the mess -- a clown show of passive-aggressive frustration -- that now characterizes state and city politics.
This isn't a giant right-wing conspiracy, as many in the Davis camp would have you believe. The Bush folks are piling on, no question. They're playing, as they do in other arenas, hard ball, big boy politics. Davis and the Democratic Party should have seen coming. They didn't. And they're really not sure what to do next.
Which brings us to the rumors about Sen. Dianne Feinstein entering the race. Mickey Kaus has most of the details on this in a post he made on Tuesday.
Kaus' logic is strong, his sourcing, well it's probably stronger than he's letting on. This is, after all, the guy who first told us Arnold would run.
Republicans will tell you that Sen. Feinstein's polling is strong. She does well against all their candidates, Arnold and former LA Mayor Richard Riorden. That's probably the best reason for her to enter the race.
All this dithering around over Arnold -- Will he? Won't he? -- is getting a bit tedious. Certainly, a lot of people -- mostly white guys like Jay Leno, who all but salivated over Schwarzenegger when he was on the Tonight show -- want him to run for the state's highest office. But it's never been very clear that Schwarzenegger himself wanted to be governor so his "leaning strongly against" decision isn't exactly shocking.
Schwarzenegger's appearances, calculated to promote his movie and his potential some-day candidacy, were heavy on signing autographs and light on any real give-and-take -- even a question or two -- with his audiences. It was Hollywood rules: The star shows up, he Terminates, you genuflect. Lots of people seemed happy to do just that for a movie star. But a gubenatorial candidate won't get the same respect and Schwarzenegger has to know that. He is no dummy.
He's also done his job -- the job of promoting the idea of a recall -- very well. The Republican Party owes him. He can collect his chits when ever he feels like it and, at 56, he's got plenty of time to do so. So Arnold's out. But he's not gone. How much you want to bet he gets a nice bit of primetime air time at the Republican Convention?
And what's all this wailing and gnashing of teeth over the idea of a recall? Dan Weintraub has a very good column progressives. v populists in today's Bee. The state's unofficial historians have been waxing eloquent about California's Progressives but they seem unable to draw the important -- then as now, as Weintraub makes clear -- distinction between Progressives and Populists. The short answer: Populists are more pissed off, Progressives more patient. All this process-oriented stuff that political wonks like to talk about? It started with the Progressives. Throw the bums out? That was the Populists.
Sunday's New York Times Op-ed page looked and read a lot like what the SF Chronicle's op-ed page should have looked like but, of course didn't.
Ms. Dowd wielded a handy pop culture metaphor -- the do-everything remote control -- to discuss the state as a whole, getting in a few shots at big-money Republicans.
But Jill Stewart who, God love her, pointed out the sleepiness (Ha! such politesse) of the California media made the more substantive contribution. Gray Davis is good in a fight, she warns and Caliornia's Republican Party? Well, there are two words: Car thief.
The Times isn't the only paper to concentrate on the recall. It's pretty much everywhere and, of course, will be until Oct. 7th. For now, the announced Davis strategy is to talk a la Hilary R. Clinton about the right wing conspiracy. It feels a little late, though. The Davis people tried that approach at the height of the energy crisis but with 9/11 coating Bush with teflon, it was a hard sell. Right now, it feels a little dated. Even HRC, in her $8.1M best seller, peddled that story a bit more softly.
The other Democratic strategy is, well, it's just as uninspiring. They're going to duke it out in the courts. Remembering Florida might be a good way to fire up the base, as they like to say(instead of using the common, more interesting English phrase, bring out loyal supporters) that just seems like more of the same from Davis et al. It may be politics. But it's proceedural. The Democrats used to be the party of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, the people who said 'fuck the lawyers.' Now they are the lawyers.
