The next several days on this blog will probably devote a lot of time to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s relationship with the Republican Party. But before we descend into this weekend’s state GOP convention bubble, it’s worth taking a quick look at this past weekend’s news coverage of the two Democratic candidates. Both Phil Angelides and Steve Westly have had great fun riding the coattails of the nurses and the public employees’ unions for several months of sustained Arnold-bashing. But over the last few days, both have taken their turn in the barrel. Which probably wasn’t nearly as enjoyable for them.
The Sacramento Bee went after Angelides, describing how the environmentally conscious candidate wasn’t nearly as green during his days as a developer, when he fought with local, state, and federal agencies over threatened species and wetland protection to the point where the EPA threatened him with criminal penalties.
Westly took it on the chin from the San Francisco Chronicle, who suggested that Westly made hunderds of thousands of dollars profit from his investments as a result of insider trading and participation in a stock manipulation scheme. Westly’s campaign is based largely on his success as a high-tech entrepeneur, so this type of profiteering would be about as helpful to his reputation in a Democratic primary as Angelides’ efforts to undermine environmental regulations.
Both campaigns will argue that the charges were overblown and taken out of context. Could be. But both candidates end up looking extremely hypocritical in the articles and will look even worse in the campaign ads that will certainly appear in the next few months. As we head into a week of intra-party sniping, the stories are a good reminder that Schwarzenegger’s bid for re-election looks much more achievable and much more worthwhile when he is judged in the context of a comparison against opponents who suffer slings and arrows of their own.
February 26th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Apparently you, and all other Republican’ts forgot that Arnold is a liberal state that finally understands everything he says is fellacious and farcical. You guys love to forget that you’re celebrated governor is going into this with no liberal support, no union support, very little minority support, and wanning moderate support, who are the only people that can actually vote a Republican into office in this state. He is a candidate and politican who has proven unable to keep his word our achieve consenus building like he purports. Good luck digging yourselves out of the ditch of venality and malfesance in which you currently reside. Your tenure at the top was short lived and nearing its end.