If you are a National Review digital or print subscriber, make sure to read Chris Weinkopf‘s piece on Governor Schwarzenegger, "The Unlikeliest Girlie Man." (Image courtesy of the California College Republicans.)
Weinkopf, the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Daily News, makes some inevasible conservative arguments against Schwarzenegger’s administration of California. He also features input from Jon Coupal and Arnie Steinberg.
Here’s an acerbic passage that stood out among the rest:
"But the lesson Schwarzenegger learned from the [special election] disaster wasn’t “pick your battles”; it was “pick no battles.” In true Hollywood fashion, he set out to reinvent himself. He apologized to the state for his over-exuberance, and hired a new chief of staff — Democrat and former Davis aide Susan Kennedy. Since then, he has made his peace with the education establishment, and his new budget includes every penny of funding that the teachers unions requested. Similarly, Schwarzenegger has dropped his onetime effort to break the guards union’s vise grip on California’s dreadfully managed prisons. Instead, he’s cozied up to the union’s leadership, earning a stinging rebuke from a court investigator looking into the system."
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Schwarzenegger’s entire appeal to Republican voters is that he won’t raise taxes. How long does anyone think that pledge will last, given his unwillingness to address the spending side of the budget? Not even the recent boomlet of tax revenues could bring us out of the red. Without some major reforms the future looks very Gray, but Arnold has declared the reform period already over. What’s left? Socialized health care? A million rooftop windmills?