Jonathan Constantine over at Red County/OC Blog did some blogging from the recently-concluded Western States Republican Conference in San Diego. He had the OC Blog "Cam" in hand, and captured Governor Schwarzenegger’s luncheon remarks. You can check it out, in three parts, here.
For those who don’t want to watch it, it is characterized by Constatine as, "nothing less than a defense of his progressive political shift to Republican voters."
No surprise there.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Can we stop using the happy little euphemism of “progressive” and just say what it really means – communist?
Besides, to allow (and cooperate) with the left’s use of progressive implies that the right is “regressive”.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Governor Schwarzenegger is sometimes a bit unclear on what can get Republicans to win other-than- district (i.e., statewide) office and district offices in contested areas.
He’s indeed correct that CA Republicans need to change, but it’s not his pro-govt-health-care & global warming BS slant that will help.
Rather, California suburban middle- (and higher-) income homeowning swing voters who are essentially conservative [a large demographic we R’s should “OWN”!] are simply and steadfastly automatically voting against R’s because of perceived “anti-choice” and “pro-religion” slant.
These two issues/skews will continue to be losers in: the abortion/choice battle is DEAD and LOST in CA. These folks also are afraid of religious taint in public school science curricula: they want their kids to be achievers and get jobs in science and tech, not as a WalMart greeter.
WHETHER THIS IS TRUE OR NOT IS IRRELEVANT. It’s the perception and marketing that needs correction. R’s are gonna need to run some pro-‘choice’ candidates to have any chance of more frequent wins of statewide office again.
CA Republican party imagemakers appear to be dominated by Orange County evangelical types that are
so far outta touch they don’t realize that this demographic IS EVEN WILLING TO PAY MONEY TO NOT BE REPUBLICAN – because this demographic’s running so hard away from Republican “choice” & religious issues they’re even willing to pay higher taxes/suffer Big Gov’t in exchange!
When people are willing to *pay* to stay away from your product, you have a product and marketing campaign that stinks.
Bill Wiese
San Jose CA