In a move that pretty-much guarantees the escalation of this issue over Governor hiring Susan Kennedy as his Chief of Staff, I just received a press release from the California Republican Assembly calling for the State GOP, at its upcoming February convention, to pull the Governor’s pre-primary endorsement. The angst comes from the fact that Kennedy has spent the last two years as a Gray Davis appointee on the Public Utilities Commission, and before that she was the 
now-recalled Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, she served as Communications Director and senior policy advisor to United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, and she served as Executive Director of both the California Democrat Party and the California Abortion Rights Action League.
This resolution of the CRA Board of Directors (passed unanimously by their 27 member Executive Committee) is significant because a large percentage of the State GOP Central Committee (which has roughly 1400 members) is made up of proud CRA conservatives. The CRA is the state’s oldest Republican volunteer organization.
Of course, this sets into play an ugly-no-matter-what scenario for the Governor. Whether the Governor’s endorsement is withdrawn or not, the last thing that he will need in February is a rancorous convention with a divided membership. Of course, the easiest way to avoid this situation is to take a sheet from the playbook of President Bush with his nomination of Harriet Meirs…
The release starts out like this:
Unanimous Vote by California Republican Assembly Executive Committee Demonstrates That Volunteers Are Unhappy With the Governor
The state’s oldest Republican volunteer organization today called on the California Republican Party to reconsider its pre-primary endorsement of Governor Schwarzenegger for re-election in 2006.
“It was a unanimous vote of our Executive Committee,” announced Mike Spence, President of the conservative California Republican Assembly. “This should send a very strong message to the Governor and the State Party leadership that the grass-roots volunteers are not happy.”
The entire release is attached as a .pdf file below that you can download.
Interestingly, the California Republican Party bylaws prohibit pre-primary endorsements. Last year, operatives of the Governor had no trouble convincing the Party leadership to amend the bylaws for a one-time exception, and the membership enthusiastically endorsed Schwarzenegger. I was told at the time that the primary motivation was to use the party endorsement as an additional enticement to get the Governor to seek re-election. Now, having the endorsement may actually turn out to be a negative. We’ll see how this develops.
Assuming that the Governor doesn’t dump his new #1, it will be interesting to see the policy agenda he proposes after the first of the year. If any of these rumors of massive indebtedness for infrastructure, significant expansion of social programs (such as government-guaranteed healthcare for young children), minimum wage hikes, or radical environmentalist programs are actually rolled out — it will add fuel to an already burning fire.
In a nutshell, it appears that the Kennedy appointment has had the effect of adding a 500 pound weight to the left hand of a Governor that has been walking on a balance beam, leaning left and right on policy issues. And while hiring Kennedy, as some have pointed out, doesn’t change the Governor’s positions on policy issues in and of itself, you can bet that on a go-forward basis, she will bear the blame for any of his non-conservative position. It certainly seems to have eradicated any good will that should have been gained with conservatives from his principled stands in the special election.
I wonder if the Governor vetted this decision with any conservatives before he made this decision – and knew that this would be the result of this hire? I am guessing not.
Oh yeah – I really don’t think the goal of the well-meaning activists is to cause this Governor to lose his re-election next year, but rather to cause the Governor to make a personnel change to acknowledge that this appointment to his top-spot is offensive and demoralizing – as well as demotivating.
[I haven’t had a chance to speak with CRA President Mike Spence about how this resolution came about, but as he is a contributor to this weblog, I’m hoping we’ll hear from him directly.]