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Schwarzenegger aims at Republican center for 2008
Posted by civil truth on September 9th, 2007
Since the above headline came from Reuters, I suspect the copywriter meant something different but inadvertently stated precisely Arnold’s intentions.
In his speech Friday night to the California Republican Party’s annual convention, Arnold said:
In movie terms, we are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats.
Well, perhaps someone with the initials A.S. has been poisoning the popcorn. After all, over the past few months, this someone has spent more time attacking Republican state legislators than the Democrats, which would seem a surefire way to sicken the audience.
Or to use a military metaphor, Arnold has been aiming at and firing cannons at the center of the Republican army – those few Republicans who actually do hold office. Doesn’t sound like a very good method of recruiting and electing more Republicans to office
Can you image this if a battlefield general advocated this as a military strategy – shoot at your own army. After all, even the most inept general knows that idea of battle is to aim at the other army. I suspect that a court martial would be more likely than a medal.
It sure sounds like Arnold wants the party to follow his directions – whether it be his health care plan or tackling other issues with “broad public appeal,” like climate change and building highways, railroads and tunnels.
And with these new government initiatives, he hopes to recruit new party members from the so-called ranks of the independents.
Somewhat hilariously, in light of the expansions in government power he’s promoting, he urged construction of a one-page state party platform focused on lowering taxes, limiting the size of government and building a strong national defense.
It’s hard to see how he plans to accomplish the first two goals along with all the new government programs he wants to start up. I guess he’s just another politician who’s going to accomplish these goals by starving someone’s else’s ass to feed his own.
As for national defense, that’s a federal issue that the state party has no control over…so what’s the point. Meanwhile, he’s been rather muted as the Democratic-controlled legislature is advancing a referendum for a popular vote by Californians on a Iraqi withdrawal.
What’s more interesting is that in the name of “including, not excluding” he proposed excluding the social issues that have galvanized many in the party into political activism.
Now in this post, I don’t really want to dive into the murky waters as to what priority that social issues should play in the state or national Republican Party, except to note that any viable conservative movement is going to have to find accomodation among social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and those who want to limit the scope of government action.
Rather, I just want to highlight the irony in Arnold’s prescription. I guess that in his eyes, not all are equally worthy of “inclusion” – he wants to “include” a host of those who agree with him, many or most of whom are going to come from outside the current party – and the rest can take a hike – even if that means “excluding” a large portion of the existing party faithful.
Sounds more like a purge than enlarging the tent.
Is this the real definition of “post-partisan” (as Arnold would like to call himself): It’s all about me.
September 9th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Maybe it’s just me but, it seems a lot of republicans get into office and then seemingly turn into a completely different person. They campaign on being a republican and promptly raise taxes and spend more. They create all sorts of programs that expands government. And then they run and say, but look at all the things I’ve done.
Which is pretty much what Ahnold did. And a lot of other republican office holders. I wish it would stop but I won’t hold my breathe waiting…. lol.