Should Arnold Schwarzenegger run for re-election as an Independent?
Schwarzenegger has always had an uneasy relationship with the Republican Party’s base. Susan Kennedy’s hiring has only intensified the tensions that have existed since he first announced plans for a ballot initiative to fund after school programs.
Schwarzenegger is a centrist. He’s conservative on economic issues and immigration issues, moderate on cultural and environmental matters. As I’ve written before, that ideological balance is what allowed him to attract the support of swing voters in the recall election. But it has also kept him from forming a stronger relationship with his own party.
Most successful politicians figure out away to balance the needs of their base with the demands of the political center. Bill Clinton did it by calling himself a “New Democrat”. George W. Bush accomplished the same goal by presenting himself as a “compassionate conservative”. Arnold didn’t come up with quite as catchy a turn of phrase for himself, but a governor who repeals the car tax and opposes drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, but supports stem cell research and solar power is attempting pretty much the same thing. (Naming a Democrat as his chief of staff is an unusually provocative extension of this point, but Schwarzenegger will almost certainly try to balance Kennedy’s hiring with the announcement of a top Republican taking on another key position.)
The unique dynamics of the recall election allowed Schwarzenegger to run from the center in a way that he could not have in a party primary. Running as an Independent would allow him the same opportunity. It would also give the state’s business community the chance to put its resources behind a candidate who didn’t have to balance their interests against either social conservatives or economic liberals.
In addition, an independent candidacy would present an opportunity for the Republican Party. The threshold for victory in a three-way race is obviously much lower than in a campaign that requires more than fifty percent of the vote. Could a more purely conservative candidate like Tom McClintock take thirty-five percent of the vote against Schwarzenegger and Angelides? (On the other hand, does a hard-line liberal like Angelides benefit from a lower vote threshold?)
Instead of a campaign in which both party’s candidates rush toward the center, 2006 would allow both Republicans and Democrats to be represented by nominees who represent their respective parties’ true ideologies. Schwarzenegger would be gambling that enough Californians are suspicious of both down-the-line liberal and conservative agendas that they’d opt for the centrist solution instead. The result would be a governor who had been elected by a plurality rather than a majority, but a governor with a much more clear-cut course of action to follow once taking office.
But there’s less reason than ever for Schwarzenegger to jam himself into a political identity with which he is not comfortable. If Arnold is an independent, who supports Republican positions on some issues and Democratic positions on others, maybe his re-election campaign would be a good time to come out and say it. Then we’ll see what the voters think.