Dan, I have had a couple of days to ponder your open question to the FlashReport contributors, and so I thought that I would take a shot at answering a few of your questions.
First, a brief historical note. As you know, on the GOP philosophical scale, I am pretty much bumping up on the right end. A red meat conservative with a healthy amount of libertarian ‘marbling’ throughout. My credentials include three years as State Chairman of California Young Americans for Freedom (the conservative youth organization founded by William F. Buckley, Jr, in 1960), two years as State President of the California Republican Assembly, and while my service as Executive Director of the State GOP years later isn’t a reference to my degree of conservatism, it is a testament that I am also very committed to the Grand Old Party. In 2003, when most principled conservative ideologues backed Tom McClintock for Governor in the recall election, after much wrangling I ended up endorsing Arnold Schwarzenegger (marking the first and only time I have ever endorsed a candidate in a primary who does not support the right to life). My reasoning is found here, but the gist is that the recall election was a primary and a general election mixed into one. There were two reasons that I supported Schwarzenegger in that election. The main reason was that while I did not agree with his positions on many of the so-called ‘social’ issues — he was SO strident and vocally critical of the out-of-control-spending in Sacramento that he successfully convinced me that he would dedicate his Governorship to fighting the special interests (read: unions) that had hijacked state government. (With the speech, maybe this point comes to mind). The second factor is that I really felt that Schwarzenegger, and not McClintock, could out poll Cruz Bustamonte. As I went through this process of deciding to support Schwarzenegger, I was quite verbose about it in the FlashReport e-newsletter. I received many many hundreds of e-mails from readers, telling me that it was my personal struggle leading to the eventual endorsement of Arnold Schwarzenegger that helped them come to the conclusion to support him as well. I have to add that many of those people are now peppering me with e-mails, concerned about whether they did the right thing.
That said, to be sure, there really is no doubt in my mind that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be the Republican nominee for Governor next year. It will be the ‘Bondinator’ that goes up against either Treasurer Phil Angelides or Controller Steve Westly. The question is not whether frustrated or even angry Republicans will find a Mel Gibson, or a Ron Unz-style candidate to run against him. It is a question of motivation. For Republican voters, the question is will they turn out and vote for someone who has so radically changed his rhetoric from the theme of restraint and reform that catapulted him into office over Gray Davis politically-dead body? For Republican leaders and volunteers – who number in the thousands, even tens of thousands, it is a question of motivation. People are motivated to get involved in politics because they believe in certain things. One important common bond that motivates virtually every GOP leader and volunteer is the idea that the Republican Party believes in fiscal restraint, conservative economic policy and reduction in regulation. Not to be cute about semantics, but Republicans are not going to ‘bond’ with this Governor’s big bond package. No one believes that the Democrats in the legislature are going to come close to offering up the kind of fiscals reforms that would be necessary for GOP leaders in the know (like me) to be able to credibly promote even part of this borrowing.
So what happens if grassroots GOP volunteers aren’t motivated and disillusioned? First and foremost, they complain and share their criticism amongst each other — and that turns to disappointment and to some, betrayal. These folks have an amazing network of family, friends, and connections. So what happens when these folks share their disappointment, and then they tell their friends, and so on…? It becomes infectious, and then it starts to effect turnout. And this isn’t even getting to the point in the process when these volunteers are called upon to give of their time, and to motivate others to give of their time. They key to motivating grassroots Republicans is to promote the principles of the Republican Party. And, in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger, for him to be the kind of fiscal conservative that he pledged he would be when he ran. No one but the Governor thinks the lesson of last November’s election was to work with his political opponents on mutually agreeable regulation (minimum wage hike) or worse, mutually agreed upon massive debt. Personally, I think that the only ‘lesson’ of the last election is that the ‘special interests’ have crossed the Rubicon now and can raise and spend so much money that they can confuse and mislead voters. You can also take strategic and tactical lessons from the failure of the Governor’s campaign.
By the way, a conservative position is that Californian’s pay plenty to efficiently run state government and fund infrastructure. But the spending choices made over the last twenty years by legislators and governors, Republican and Democrat alike, haven’t prioritized infrastructure. So any amount of bond funding would have to be to make up the missed years of needed funding – but on a go-forward basis, with a general fund of nearly a hundred billion dollars, our future infrastructure needs should be paid for in cash, and with all of the safeguards recommended by Tom McClintock.
So, the bottom line is that the Governor has to worry about losing volunteers and donors not to an opponent, but to indifference, apathy, frustration or anger.
Perhaps a good example would be me. I don’t know what the line is where the Governor’s push to the center means he loses my support. It may be a gradual process. But read my commentaries, and even this e-mail, and you can hear and feel my frustration. Do I sound like a happy Republican volunteer leader?
In closing, on your question about whether we would be less concerned about the speech if a Democrat was not his Chief of Staff. The answer is firmly NO.
PS: After reading Dan’s latest piece right below this one, I am also fearful of the bigger picture relative to the effect of the Jack Abramoff scandal. I was so angry about one burning tree that Dan is correct, I wasn’t looking at the potential forest fire…