If I were putting together a strategy for Arnold Schwarzenegger to employ that would attempt to calm the anger among Republican activists regarding his hiring of Susan Kennedy (which I am not), I would hire a Democrat to do something really extreme that reminded Republicans why Arnold is still their best option next year.
So I’m assuming that the Schwarzenegger team has put Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz on their payroll, and bribed him to propose legislation and hold high-profile hearings to push for a death penalty moratorium in California. Then the governor could spend the first few months of his re-election campaign fighting heroically to preserve the death penalty in the state, while Phil Angelides and Steve Westly looked for safe hiding places until their party’s primary was over.
But even for a principled opponent of capital punishment, and even for a legislature gerrymandered into safe districts, Koretz’s quote in this morning’s Los Angeles Times offers an excellent reminder on why competitive legislative elections would improve the quality of political debate in California. Defending his proposal, Koretz told the Times that “There are people who are pure as the driven snow who are on death row. ”
Only a politician who will never face a credible general election opponent in his lifetime would ever utter such a statement.
I come from Wisconsin, where I saw quite a bit of driven snow over the years. So maybe Koretz and I have a different definition of purity. But arguing against the death penalty by taking a stand on behalf of the purity of convicted murderers seems like a pretty wonderful political gift for a Republican governor who needs a way to bring back his base.
On a related note, it appears that a few high profile conservative leaders have begun to dismiss the importance of the Kennedy hiring. After the Republican Assembly caucus met yesterday with the governor, Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy appeared to do just that. “I see a chief of staff as a hired gun,” he said. “I think chiefs of staff are going to be loyal to the person that hires them.” Mountjoy said.
Mountjoy joins Senator Tom Mcclintock, perhaps the state’s most respected conservative voice, who earlier had said pretty much the same thing. Neither McClintock or Mountjoy are considered to be Schwarzenegger apologists, not by any stretch of the imagination. Their voices suggest divided opinion over the Kennedy hiring, rather than the unanimous opposition that had originally appeared to exist. But all this does is raise pressure on Schwarzenegger to show that he’s not allowing his new chief of staff to steer the policy ship. His first test: an infrastructure bond proposal that doesn’t break the bank.
In the meantime, though, credit Paul Koretz with an imaginative strategy for helping the governor reassemble his base heading into a re-election year. I’ve never seen snow in West Hollywood, but still….