Schnur is right. The Governor is testing conservatives and seeking to do what has never been successful in the recorded history of mankind for a GOP candidate – moving left to get Democrat votes. So, this conservative stands in front of the fork in the road. I am told the minimum wage deal is to keep a far worse initiative off of the November 2006 ballot, so let’s give him a pass on this one. The bonds, now that is just ridiculous. We don’t have the borrowing capacity and because general obligation bonds take precedent over other State spending we will have to have a tax increase to make the payments on these while maintaining current spending levels. If he facilitates the placement of these bonds on the ballot I will simply leave my ballot blank in November under Governor. Now, what other public policy issues would cause me to leave my ballot blank? Any income tax increase. Driver licenses for illegal immigrants. Gay marriage. Any substantive tinkering with Workers’ comp reform. I would vote for the Governor if he stays the course on these issues and continues to veto bad Democrat legislation.
Now what of the Democrats? They have ingeniously, either accidentally or intentionally, avoided the pain of their low approval ratings by transferring their public face to teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops and prison guards. This is a brilliant outcome. By having these highly regarded proxies doing their bidding, Democrats continue to get votes in large numbers based on the recommendations of these groups. Any strategy for the Governor’s re-election needs to include redefining these five key Democrat subsidiaries and that will take guts. They certainly are not backing off of defeating Schwarzenneger and no matter what his policies become this year they will vigorously oppose him and support either Steve Westly or Phil Angelides on the Democrat side.
Rather than testing conservatives, the Governor should utilize the familiarity that Susan Kennedy has with the unions and devise a strategy for redefining them and driving their negative up and positives down. While we can all admire their professional contributions to society, we can factually opine that when their politics prevail the State melts down. Maybe the Governor’s message needs to be a simple as that. He can certainly point out the problems we had in this State when unions set up shop in the Governor’s office last time. As Dan Walters said in his column this morning, quit “negotiating your surrender” and get at the heart of what you have to do to win. Either that, or don’t run again. Moving to the left or testing conservatives isn’t a strategy.