Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Is Arnold a Republican?
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, speaks as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, right, looks on at the 75th Annual Meeting of the US Conference of Mayors in Los Angeles, Saturday, June 23, 2007.
Is Schwarzenegger really a Republican? Less so than the young immigrant who rose from body builder to movie star.
Less so than the unexpected candidate who replaced Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in the 2003 recall election. Less so than the compelling orator who addressed the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Less so than he probably would be now if he had been born in Alabama instead of Austria and could run for the GOP presidential nomination next year.
While he is embraced by business interests as incomparably better than Davis or any Democrat, he is a crushing disappointment to hard-pressed Republican activists.
As titular head of the California GOP, Arnold has done little to elect GOP candidates. And his appointments to the state courts have been mixed with many GOP lawyers waiting to be appointed to the bench while their Democrat colleagues are.
Since the California Special Election of 2005 (where the Governor took a drubbing of his reform measures), Schwarzenegger has withdrawn as a Republican and embraced a populist approach that assured him re-election last year and a boost in the polls. Arnold governs as a Democrat.
The California GOP is in disarray. The party needs a “leader.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is NOT the one.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Bridging the Political Divide
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