FR friend Bruce Bialosky sent me this column weeks ago, and I told him I would run it.  Somehow I never did, and after a gentle reminder from Bruce, here is his piece, which is definately from the heart, which he has entitled, "Why Arnold is Losing the Republicans"…  Bruce has been involved with helping to raise funds up in LA for Republican candidates and causes for years.

The recent semi-annual California Republican Convention was an attempt by Governor Schwarzenegger and others to solidify his support with the base of the party.  Despite his efforts and those of State Senator Tom McClintock, Arnold has failed as of now.

Schwarzenegger positions have left the base feeling that supporting him for reelection may not only be the wrong thing to do, but may also be counterproductive.

Arnold and his gaggle of handlers believe his fight is with wild-eyed, right-wing conservatives.  That is not true.  Mainstream Republicans who have stayed away from the moderate/conservative slugfest in the California Republican Party are also skeptical.  It is not because Arnold is a RINO (Republican In Name Only).  It is because they believe there is not much Republican there at all.

Arnold did start off by doing the right things.  He vetoed driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and repealed the tripling of the car tax.  But those were no-brainers.  That was what the recall was all about and anybody who won would have had to do the same.  His State of the State address in 2005 sounded great, but unfortunately because he was poorly advised he wasted his governorship on a special election that was doomed before it started.

The feeling is that he has put the final nails in the coffin of his Republican policies and is now orbiting into the Democratic ozone with the misguided idea that this will keep him in office.  But in the end, to what end?  The only policy that he can point to that will attract Republicans is that he has not raised taxes.  He has not needed to because the tax policies of President Bush have caused a $9 billion (11 percent) increase in state revenues that has alleviated any need to adjust tax rates.  Yet, Arnold snubs the President and then blames him for all that is ill with the Arnold administration, including his latest gambit of blaming the California’s levee repair needs on the federal government.

It is not only because of the appointment of Susan Kennedy that Republicans have a disdain for this administration.  It is the consistent appointment of Democrats throughout his administration.  By his own staff’s account, 42 percent of his appointments are Democrats while still more are registered independents.  If a Republican governor does not understand having Republicans throughout his administration has an effect on policy then he is just sadly confused.  But it gets worse.

The most important appointments Arnold makes are judgeships.  Out of 121 judgeships, he has appointed 61 Republicans.  In his wildest dreams does he really believe that a Democrat would be that evenhanded?  A large part of the national election in 2004 was over who would get to appoint the judges, and apparently our Governor did not get the message that Republicans wanted Republicans appointed to the bench.  They actually like judges akin to John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

After Arnold appointed Kennedy, I had a conversation with a well-placed California Republican.  He assured me that things were “going to be alright”.  He told me that Arnold was a Republican who was liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal issues.  Directly after that conversation, Arnold did the following:  1) He endorsed raising the minimum wage, 2) He declared there was a $5 billion budget surplus and announced he was going to spend every last dime of it with no debt reduction or savings for when the revenue stream slows down, 3) He called for new bonded indebtness of $222 billion without telling how this was going to be paid for except for some new fees (TAXES), and 4) He submitted a budget with a more than $6 billion deficit in the face of spiraling increases in revenues.  Arnold purports to be an adherent of the great economist Milton Friedman, and yet he appears to many to have confused him with his cousin Irving of the Peace and Freedom Party.

Arnold has only lame answers for his actions.  He stated on national television that he was elected to serve not just the Republicans.  Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Bob Ehrlich of Maryland and George Pataki of New York face the same challenges and they don’t make the same sophomoric excuses.  They appoint Republicans and run their states as Republicans and believe that is the best way to appeal to their state’s interests.  Arnold told Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was going to run as an Arnold Republican.  That appears to many to be a very tiny group.

We Republicans stand for certain things.  There is a bottom line even mainstream and moderate Republicans are unwilling to tolerate.  If Arnold is going to act more democratic than a Democrat, the perception is: let them screw up the state even more and then we can elect a Republican who wants to be a Republican.  That has happened with the Governors mentioned above who were elected in states as liberal as California.

The talk is that Republicans will be working to elect Republicans all over the country to keep our majority in Congress and in the state houses.  They will be writing checks for many also.  Unless Arnold gives them more reason than “I am not Phil Angelides,” that may not change and the Governor can go back to being just ‘Arnold’ a lot sooner than he thought possible.

Bruce L. Bialosky
Former Chair, Golden Circle of the California Republican Party

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.