What contrarians we Californians are. While much of the country is finally waking up to the fact that Republicans really are incompetent at governing, we are on a glide path to re-electing the biggest faker in the bunch.
If California were a person, I would be worried that she is suffering short-term memory loss. It was just 11 months ago that she held Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with little more than contempt. He had been on TV a lot promoting his ballot initiatives, and he had his back up over fierce opposition from the unions. The confrontation brought out his natural tendency for bullying, which is unpleasant to begin but sounds especially harsh with a German accent.
This time last year, the only politician less popular in California than the governor was President Bush. Today the president’s numbers are still in the dumper but Governor Schwarzenegger’s approval is 56 percent in the latest Los Angeles Times poll. It appears he’s going to wallop Phil Angelides, the Democrat, in the election next month.
Angelides is part of the problem. Physically, he looks like the 98-pound weakling in the old Charles Atlas ads — the skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face by the bully who, come to think of it, looks remarkably like der Gubernator.
However, if Schwarzenegger wins reelection, the principal credit must go to a very unlikely source: his acting ability. In the year since he voters smacked down his initiatives, he has altered his persona so completely it’s as if the loutish goof he was portraying a year ago has ceased to exist. His new characterization is a genial and retiring statesman, Mr. Reasonable.
He also moderated his policy goals. Up until last year, legislation coming out of the governor’s office was largely written by the California Chamber of Commerce, which is an incredibly powerful institution in the state. It is so closely allied with the GOP here that during the years of Democratic control of the state, the chamber has operated a bit like a shadow government or a government in exile.
Over the past year, Gov. Schwarzenegger has carefully steered away from the appearance of kowowing to the chamber and has more often sought to find common ground with the Democrats who control the legislature. He has also placated the unions just enough to keep them from running the sort of ads that devastated him during the initiative campaign. (The unions just went up with some ads against Schwarzenegger’s reelection, reminding voters about his performance in 2005, but they are probably too little and too late.)
So now Californians face a choice that is remarkably similar to the choice the nation faced in the most recent presidential election: A perfectly qualified but rather uninspiring challenger against a spoiled and pampered faker with a barely acceptable track record.
If history continues to repeat itself after the governor is re-elected, he’ll return to his role as mouthpiece for the chamber, ramming through an agenda designed to fatten the wallets of his fatcat buddies, his approval will drop back into the basement — and he will retire as the least popular and successful governor the state has had.
Stay tuned.
And California will have achieved exactly the results that THEY COLLECTIVELY DESERVE….IT IS THEY WHO GO FOR THE GLITZERS AND SHITZERS LIKE
“STAR CLASS ARNIE” WHICH IS WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO GET IF THEY PUT HIM BACK IN OFFICE….What bunches of dunces they are…..