Bad news for fakers: The leaders of the Republican Party must be quaking in their boots in light of the elections of Democrats as governors in New Jersey and, especially, Virginia. This can’t bode well for the federal elections next year.
But President Bush’s minders may have an even more serious case of agita over the collapse of the Schwarzenegger governorship here in California. Their concern isn’t that Bush and Arnold are close allies or share similar philosophies – or that there was ever any hope that Arnold could flip the state back to the GOP.
Rather, what must concern the White House messagemeisters is that Bush and Arnold share similar political and personal weaknesses that their handlers have, until now, hidden from voters in similar ways. California voters have wised up to Schwarzenegger’s act – and there is real danger (and polling to prove it) that voters nationwide are begining to see through Mr. Bush’s tired routine as well.
Both the president and the governor go to great lengths to conceal their “real” personas from public view – probably because in real life they are both self-aggrandizing jerks. Since both pols must rely on manufactured personalites when they are on the public stage, this limits them to tightly stage-managed and scripted appearances in front of handpicked crowds of sycophants.
Neither man is truly comfortable in his own skin – and neither can think on their feet – so their handlers have to go out of their way to avoid putting them into one-on-one interviews with reporters or live debates with other politicians.
The harsh lesson Arnold’s handlers learned in the defeat of his “reform agenda” yesterday – and that must have Karl Rove in a panic – is that politicians in the spotlight cannot hide their true selves from voters forever. The tide of events has a way of unmasking even the most practiced fakers.
The drubbing Arnold took yesterday must have Rove & Co. wondering how they can stop a similar backlash against the empty suit in the Oval Office from destroying the GOP nationwide.
Here’s how the Los Angeles Times analyzed the defeat of the Das Guber’s propositions this morning:
[Schwarzenegger] largely shunned unscripted encounters with voters and face-to-face debates with political opponents, sticking instead to friendly exchanges in venues packed with admiring supporters.
His campaign echoed the strategy he employed in the 2003 recall campaign, when the product he was selling was “Arnold,” the outsider determined to “clean up” Sacramento with the same wit and resolve he showed in his movies.
But in the special election, he was pitching a complicated package of ballot initiatives. He wasn’t asking voters so much to “join Arnold” — his inclusive recall message — as to choose sides. And in California, his side — the Republican side — is greatly outnumbered by Democrats and political independents.
Schwarzenegger cast the debate in stark terms. He was a bold force for progress; the teachers, firefighters and nurses arrayed against him were selfish “special interests” defending a sclerotic political culture.
He employed a vocabulary straight from Hollywood. He referred to the election as “Judgment Day” — the name of one of his “Terminator” movies. He cast Tuesday’s vote as the “sequel” to the 2003 recall. He constantly reminded voters they had once paid money to see him in the theaters — even when that allusion was a reach. He ended his rallies with his cinematic signature: “I’ll be back.”
Inside Schwarzenegger’s circle and out, Republicans said he should have found a more serious way to speak to voters.
The problem, however, was that Schwarzenegger never seemed to make the transition from celebrity to chief executive. The obvious comparison is to another actor-turned-California governor, Ronald Reagan.
Ken Khachigian, a longtime Republican strategist who was a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, said of Schwarzenegger’s rhetorical habits: “It was like, ‘OK, we’ve heard that stuff.’ This is different now. This is policy and substance, and the speeches should have used a little different rhetoric.”
…A Republican strategist and occasional Schwarzenegger advisor put it more bluntly Tuesday, saying privately: “The act is getting stale.”
