Governor, I’m not sure I can make the case any more.
I can do the "He’s Better Than Angelides" argument: that one’s still easy. But for the last several weeks, I’ve maintained that your new approach has more to do with tone and emphasis than any substantive policy change. The Administration’s new state budget proposal makes that a lot more difficult.
As my friend Fleischman noted, I was quoted in this morning’s San Diego Union Tribune saying the following:
When I spoke to the reporter writing this story, that’s what I believed. But that was before the governor released his new budget.
I’ve written here before that Schwarzenegger did not move to the right in last year’s special election, but rather chose to spend most of his political capital on issues reflecting the conservative aspects of his political persona. As much as his public statements highlighted a right-leaning agenda, he never abandoned his more centrist policy priorities.
At the same time the governor was pushing for budget reform, he was signing legislation expanding the rights of domestic partnerships. At the same time he was endorsing paycheck protection, he was advocating for various pieces of environmental protection legislation. And at the same time he was supporting parental notification for teenagers considering abortions, he was maintaining his broader support for keeping abortion legal. There’s nothing nefarious about this approach: it’s an accurate reflection of the centrist who ran for governor two years before
This is the same man who ran promising to eliminate the state’s car tax and to repeal legislation that had provided drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, but who also promised continued protection of abortion rights and the state’s natural resources. From the beginning, Schwarzenegger has been conservative on some issues and moderate on others. From the beginning, he’s been the world’s strongest soccer mom
So when the governor’s office began leaking his decisions on raising the minimum wage, pushing for expanded prescription drug access, and freezing college tuitions, it seemed to be little more than a continuation of the mostly overlooked moderate aspects of his agenda. He had made similar policy pronouncements in each of these areas in the past: all he was doing now was drawing more public attention to those positions and less to those that had characterized his reform package last November. Even the infrastructure bond, as I have written repeatedly, could be accomplished in a fiscally responsible way if implemented according to the suggestions of Wall Street, McClintock, and others. (Interestingly, Susan Kennedy has been the only voice of the Administration making the case for a fiscally conservative approach to bonding in the state’s news media.)
And then came the budget. I won’t repeat the litany of criticisms that have been leveled against it. But it’s worth noting Schwarzenegger’s assertion that balancing the budget would bring significant harm upon California’s schools and other needs. That’s a point that can and should be legitimately debated, both in Sacramento this summer and on the campaign trail this fall. But it is substantively a different approach to the state budget deficit than he has articulated for the past few years. Finance Director Mike Genest and others accurately point out the progress Schwarzenegger has made in shrinking the deficit since taking office. But that reminder serves primarily to underline the new course the governor has now chosen.
Arnold’s political centrism has always begun with a basic economic conservatism, leavened with a more moderate approach on cultural and environmental issues. And this budget proposal, while it may be the best that Schwarzenegger can hope to extract from an emboldened Legislature, is not conservative. It’s not catastrophic, and it’s much better than anything that the likely Democratic candidates would ever propose, but it’s not conservative.
I still believe that Schwarzenegger will not raise taxes. I’m still confident that he’ll continue to draw the hard line against drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants and in favor of Jessica’s Law. He’ll apply just as legitimate a standard on future death penalty cases as he has in the past. But while I’m almost certainly more comfortable with his grounding on social, environmental, and cultural matters than most of my colleagues on this website, I also recognize that many conservatives will be looking for more to motivate them to the polls this fall. As he prepares to take over the reins of the governor’s campaign, my friend Steve Schmidt’s greatest challenge will be to figure out a way to re-create the Schwarzenegger political balancing act without one of its most important policy elements.
I still intend to vote for Arnold’s re-election, because of the issues outlined in the above paragraph, and because the alternatives would be so potentially destructive to California’s future. But it’s a case I’ll now have to make by pointing out the downsides of Angelides and Westly. I can and will talk about all sorts of things I like about the Schwarzenegger agenda, but I no longer know how to defend his credentials as an economic conservative.
Recent polling shows that Schwarzenegger has begun to win back support among the swing voters he lost last November, and this new approach is the major reason for that progress. While it’s clear that he can’t win re-election without these voters, the open question is still whether his own party sticks with him.
Being more conservative than Phil Angelides, while not a particularly inspiring message, is probably good enough for many of us. But there are a lot of GOP loyalists who are going to need something else.