The Collectinator Has No Clothes

Once again, the Collectinator has failed to deliver for California. Schwarzenegger talks a big game, but his follow-through has been atrocious.

As a reminder, “Schwarzenegger campaigned as a Republican who could work with the White House and pledged to make demands of the federal government. He vowed to recover ‘more than $50 billion’ from the federal government, saying the state pays more money to Washington than it gets back. ‘By the time I'm through with this whole thing, I will not be known as the Terminator — I will be known as the Collectinator,’ Schwarzenegger said while campaigning.” (Fox News, October 16, 2003)

In 2004 “Bush's budget, however, did little to help the state.” (CNN, February 22, 2004)

Now the LA Times reports that while Arnold jaunted off to China with his $10,000-a-head corporate buddies, the Governor did next to NOTHING as congressional Republicans were trying to force through some budget cuts in order to pay for the War in Iraq and their botched response to Hurricane Katrina response. “Republican-backed budget cuts moving through Congress threaten to hit California with billions of dollars in lost aid, putting some state social services in jeopardy and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at risk of yet another political setback.”

The proposed Republican cuts include, “provisions that, in California, would make it tougher to get child support from tens of thousands of deadbeat parents, would strip food stamps from legal immigrants, and would make less money available to doctors who treat low-income patients.” (LA Times, November 25, 2005)

Californians might have hoped that “The Collectinator” would use his Republican ties to put a stop to this – What bold move would the Guv employ to stop these cuts dead in their tracks? ONE LETTER.

Yes, Arnold did write a letter to the California Republican Reps urging them to vote no, and only after significant pressure from Democrats. Not a visit, or a phone call, or a press conference … a letter. Arnold’s letter turned out pretty much like his special election: this guy is zero for life. The same Times article reports that every single one of Schwarzenegger’s buddies in California Republican Delegation voted in favor of the cuts.

This turn of events, while upsetting, is not wholly surprising considering Arnold’s flimsy grasp on how one actually gets the President to send federal dollars our way. Earlier this year, while campaigning for Bush, our Governor said he wouldn’t be upset if his appearances didn’t translate into more money for California: "What I don't want to see is that I stopped at one stop that maybe we get an extra billion dollars -- and (New York Gov. George) Pataki stopped 15 stops for Bush and gets $15 billion more." (CNN, February 17, 2005)

After wasting millions of dollars in the special election, then losing billions more while off in China, how much longer will the people of California buy this guy’s empty promises?

Whew! Glad He Took Care of That

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Governor Schwarzenegger Proclaims November 24, 2005 as Thanksgiving Day

"...In celebration of Thanksgiving, we recognize the Californians who came before us, those who triumphed over obstacles with courage and ingenuity. We proudly follow their trail to ensure that our state continues to be a land of freedom and opportunity for all.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim November 24, 2005, as 'Thanksgiving Day.'"

Thank you for handing down that decree, Governor Obvious. I kinda thought Abraham Lincoln took care of that one awhile back.

Our Turkey of the Year Award Goes To…

Well, it will come as no surprise to you that we at the California Democratic Majority have selected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as the recipient of our first ever “Turkey of the Year” award.

Appearances by the Governator in California have been few and far between since his failed special election (and no, running off to Red China with your big business allies doesn’t count) With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, we thought we’d give you a few reminders of what makes this “Turkey” so special.

The Man Without a Plan – On Saturday, it was reported that the Schwarzenegger Administration “has failed to comply with a law requiring it to submit a five-year plan on the state's building needs… After taking office in November 2003, Schwarzenegger's office did not submit a plan for 2004, and it has not yet submitted one this year. The plan was supposed to be included with the governor's budget Jan. 10.” (San Jose Mercury News, November 19, 2005)

Anybody who has been paying attention knows that the SS Schwarzenegger is a rudderless ship. The Governor has no plan to deal with education; no plan to deal with healthcare; and the plan to deal with infrastructure consists of nothing more than trial balloons. In any event, the Administration’s continual flaunting of the law, as though it doesn’t apply to them, continues to amaze Capitol observers.

The Stone Wall – During the recall campaign, Governor Schwarzenegger pledged to make his the most open administration in history. Yet his attorneys continue to rebuff attempts from news organizations and others for the most basic of information.

“A free-speech group and two newspapers sued Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday to try to force him to reveal who was meeting with two of his top aides while he was considering the fate of hundreds of bills last year.” (Associated Press, November 21, 2005)

This suit should be unnecessary given the Governor’s campaign promises with respect to transparency. Another broken promise for the Governor equals another reason for Turkey of the Year.

The Blame Game – Last week, the Capitol Weekly reported the Governor’s chief campaign strategist recused himself and the Governor from any responsibility in the derailment of the “Reform” Express and instead placed the fault entirely on big business.

“Two days after the special election, the California Chamber of Commerce held its post-election powwow in the former Four Seasons hotel in Newport Beach. The talk of the two-day affair was the keynote speech from campaign strategist Mike Murphy, who told the room full of business leaders that they were to blame for the governor's defeat. Numerous sources in attendance said Murphy chided the business community for not matching the spending by labor unions during the election. And because of the governor's defeat, Murphy warned the room that they should prepare for some uncomfortable moments in the year ahead.” (Capitol Weekly, November 17, 2005)

Hmm… How much do you want to bet the folks at the Chamber feel like they’re the ones being stuffed this Thanksgiving?

A Democrat gives thanks--for all the Republican turkeys

--
Special to the Capitol Weekly
(published November 22nd, 2005)

Ahhh, the Thanksgiving commentary column. What a perfect opportunity to provide some insight on the events of the past year and set the stage for the political happenings of the next. Or maybe, if you're cheeky, you can take some gratuitous potshots at political opponents disguised as an essay reflecting on the year's many blessings.

There are so many things to be thankful for this year, such as the Governor's wonderful official/campaign advance staff, who never missed an opportunity to phony up even the most intimate of events, but why dwell on the past?

In the spirit of the season, let's try and Navigate away from the latter. (With one exception: Thank you President Bush for loaning the Citizens to Save California one of his top press aides. That Reed Dickens guy was great!)

Because Team Arnold decided to drag the entire political community down into the swamp in an effort to boost their boss's ego, it's safe to say no one feels like they had a great year. Sure we're grateful we beat back the governor's flawed initiatives, but it wasn't really an election anybody wanted. For the Democrats, however, there are still quite a few things to be thankful for this year.

We give thanks for new alliances. Gov. Schwarzenegger's decision to declare all-out war on teachers, nurses, police, firefighters and state employees brought together a formidable alliance that was unified as never before.

While Schwarzenegger attempted to use his ready access to the media to demonize the leaders of these groups as uncaring "bosses," these folks banded together and fought back to protect the people they serve: students, patients, victims - basically the general public.

Together, the Alliance successfully recast the special election as a fight between the governor's big business special interests versus regular people. If the Alliance remains intact, the governor and his Chamber of Commerce buddies will have a tough time implementing the anti-worker vision they laid out this past January.

The good news for Democrats is that they should have an easier time pushing for an increase in the minimum wage and other long overdue worker safeguards.

We give thanks to the voters for holding Schwarzenegger accountable for his promises. Earlier this year, the Governor reneged on his campaign promise not to mess with Proposition 98. We worked with the Education Coalition to remind people the governor had gone back on his word on this and other education commitments. The centerpiece of the Schwarzenegger "reform" agenda, Proposition 76, would have obliterated voter-approved education funding guarantees.

No matter how much air freshener the folks at the Senator Hotel sprayed around the so-called "Live Within Our Means" act, the voters smelled a rat from the very beginning. They crushed Prop. 76 and saved our schools from future raids by this or any future governor. Education funding was reinforced as a top priority and the governor ignores this voter mandate at his own peril.

Speaking of voters, we also give thanks for the increased clout of the Latino electorate. Latino voter participation has been steadily increasing in California. Fifteen percent of Latino voters turned out to vote in the 2002 California election and eighteen percent turned out nationally for the 2004 cycle. Sadly, we have seen no exit polling for the 2005 special election, but given the attention, paid and otherwise, from both sides I expect Latino turnout continued to improve.

Right now, this bodes well for Democrats because Latinos see Schwarzenegger as (lessee…how shall I put this?)...well, a backstabbing liar. As long as Democrats don't make the mistake of taking the Latino vote for granted, the strength of this voter bloc should bode well for us in 2006 and beyond.

Roger Salazar is a principal with the Sacramento political consulting firm, AcostaSalazar LLC. He was a spokesman for former Vice President Al Gore, and served in former Gov. Gray Davis’ press office.

From the Golden State Blog...

Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times has a blog. The following appeared on Friday:

The Chamber Drops the Ball

One of the dirty little secrets of the recent special election campaign is the disastrous role played by the California Chamber of Commerce. To its tradition of being utterly useless to the average Californian, this organization has now added the distinction of becoming a dead weight around the neck of its chief spear-carrier, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Anthony York touches briefly on some of this background in his incisive post-mortem today in Capitol Weekly. To flesh it out, the calamitous "Live Within Our Means Act," otherwise known as Proposition 76, was drafted jointly by Chamber President Alan Zaremberg and Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable. Hauck is a public-spirited man who has served ably on a number of state panels over the years, some of which have made some very sensible recommendations for real reforms. The same can’t be said of Zaremberg, whose organization has had nothing but a noxious influence on the state.

The Chamber’s input is plainly what gave Prop 76 its coloration as an instrument of special interests. This is par for the course. The Chamber has consistently defined the interests of its membership in the narrowest possible terms, boiling them down to little more than lower taxes and less regulation. In so doing, it has come to represent the interests of a narrow spectrum of California businesses—chiefly department stores and fast food restaurants. When it labels a universal health care mandate a "job killer," it’s speaking up for McDonald’s franchisees, not for the responsible corporations that already provide health care for their employers and are losing out to lose out to freeloading competitors, like Wal-Mart, that let Medi-Cal and public hospitals treat their workers—at the expense of the rest of us.

The Chamber loves to attack minimum-wage increases and social spending. It has never offered the people of this state any comprehensive policy proposals on education reform, budget and revenue reform, or medical insurance reform. It just kicks back and says No.

I asked Zaremberg during the Chamber’s 2004 campaign against SB2, the health insurance mandate law, when his organization would propose a health insurance policy of its own. He promised me one would be forthcoming as soon as SB2 was killed. It was killed in the November 2004 election. I’m still waiting for him to make good on his pledge.

One other point mentioned by York bears examination. He notes that the Schwarzenegger campaign was barred by law from running the initiative campaigns, which were left to the likes of Zaremberg and Joel Fox of the sham Small Business Action Committee (among its "small" backers are Philip Morris USA and Pacific Gas & Electric) to manage, or, more accurately, mismanage. But Schwarzenegger had to keep hands off only if he wanted to have free rein to raise as much money as he could. If he were willing to stick to the $23,000 per donor contribution limits established by state law, he could have been chairman of the initiative committee, too. His decision to go all-out for cash simply reflects how corporate-friendly an enterprise the special election was.

If there’s any justice, the results of the special election should mark an end to the Chamber of Commerce’s single-minded and narrow-minded influence in Sacramento. Nothing’s wrong with business being at the table when policy is made at the statehouse; the business community has a lot to offer us in skills, knowledge, and vigor. But it needs to take a broader view of its own interests and a longer view of what it takes to rebuild California. That won’t happen until the Chamber leadership is run out of town on a rail.

Wilson Acknowledges his Political Twin

Capitol Weekly recently caught up with former Governor Pete Wilson to get his thoughts on Arnold and the Special Election. The interview in today’s paper once-again proves what we have known all along – Arnold is a carbon copy of Pete Wilson – and this time the comparison comes straight from Wilson’s mouth.

When asked about why the sense of bipartisanship has declined over Schwarzenegger’s term, Wilson responds, “Well I don't know if it is all that different from my own experience to be honest with you. There may have been a greater expectation in his case that he would be more accommodating. I never had that. I think it was based to some extent on the fact that Maria is part of the Kennedy clan but Arnold is doing many of the things that I did or sought to do.”

Wilson goes on to say, “We undertook many of the things the governor is doing now. He has put on one ballot many of the things that I put on several.”

Arnold and his team can try all they want to deny that they are replicating the Wilson era, but they seem to be the only ones who don’t get it.

More evidence to the Wilson-Schwarzenegger union came in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee. In his column, Peter Schrag makes the argument that Schwarzenegger’s Agenda is just Pete Wilson Redux far more eloquently than we ever could. Here are some excerpts:

Arnold's agenda: The specter of a governor past

By Peter Schrag – Sacramento Bee Columnist
Wednesday, November 2, 2005

“Has the ghost of ex-Gov. Pete Wilson invested the bulked-up body of Arnold Schwarzenegger? Looking at the governor's past year and at his agenda for Tuesday's special election, what other conclusion can you come to? …

“…Schwarzenegger, in a stunning example of the triumph of hubris over political smarts, took them all on at once -cops and firefighters, nurses, teachers. His stab at a pension reform initiative may well have been overdue, but in the failure to draft it carefully the pension proposal left open the possibility that it would jeopardize the death and disability benefits of all public safety employees and their families. It was subsequently withdrawn, but not before it laid the basis for the unified campaign that could well kill most of what's left of Schwarzenegger's agenda.

“Given the composition of Schwarzenegger's political staff and his nebula of consultants and advisers, many of whom were also members of Wilson's staff -George Gorton, Don Sipple, Marty Wilson, Bob White -not to mention his close association with Wilson himself, it's not surprising that so much of Schwarzenegger's campaign is composed of the wreckage of Wilson campaigns past…” (Sacramento Bee, November 2, 2005)

Click here for the complete column.

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Praise the Lord and Pass the Indignation

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Pardon us if we’re unmoved by the cries from Team Arnold and the GOP. “Ohhhh, the ignominy of it all! Oh, how low will those Democrats go?”

Today’s Los Angeles Times reports that Team Schwarzenegger was upset at a news conference held by religious leaders opposed to the Governor’s anti-worker, anti-education agenda.

“...the governor's aides denounced a small protest by religious leaders that took place across the street from Schwarzenegger's church in Santa Monica. Spokesman Todd Harris said the protest, coming on All Saints Day, was ‘not only tacky but an insult to all Californians of faith.’

“…Saint Monica's was full of worshipers attending Mass as the news conference progressed. The church declined to comment in detail, but Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said the group was concerned that the protest was ‘religious grandstanding.’” (Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2005)

Well, pardon us, but we don’t seem to remember any of the Governor’s team taking umbrage when the L.A. Times, in an article appropriately entitled “Praise the Lord and Pass the Initiatives,” reported that the GOP had hired Gary Marx to:

“…rally Christian conservatives behind an abortion measure on the November special election ballot in hopes that, once drawn to the polls, they will back the rest of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's fall agenda… the Republican church program is partly an attempt to replicate the Bush campaign's success in mobilizing swing-state evangelicals behind the president last year through extensive face-to-face conversations with fellow parishioners… (Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2005)

In fact, according to the Sacramento Bee, the Governor’s allies are working with church ministers to insert election propaganda and talking points into Sunday Sermons that reference Proposition 73 and the Governor’s initiatives…

“The California Catholic Conference prepared a series of homilies for priests to mark October as "Respect Life" month and to use as a countdown to the Nov. 8 special election. The sermons make references to Proposition 73, an initiative that would require parental notification before doctors can perform abortions on girls under 18…The talking point homilies are among numerous get-out-the-vote efforts in support of or against the parental notification initiative.

For example, “...the Traditional Values Coalition is printing 100,000 slate mailers for evangelical churches, declaring: ‘We must not let Planned Parenthood and their baby-killing allies dominate at the polls.’

“And Benjamin Lopez, a coalition lobbyist, said the slate mailers will also urge Christian conservatives to vote ‘yes’ on the governor's special election agenda, comprising Propositions 74, 75, 76 and 77.” (Sacramento Bee, October 30, 2005)

A press conference across the street from a church pales in comparison to what the GOP is doing, so please, spare us the false indignation.

Isn’t Halloween over?

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Meanwhile, over at the “Sisyphus” Express, we noticed that the Governor’s employees, Tom Campbell and Margaret Fortune, are doing events with “two nurses, a teacher and a sheriff.”

If Campbell dresses like a sailor and Fortune shows up in her construction worker gear, they could have a “Village People Reunion.”

After seeing today's Field Poll numbers, though, Campbell and Fortune might want to keep their masks on. Instead they just keep pushing that Proposition 76 rock up the hill.

Wonder what they did to deserve that punishment?

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Micro-who?

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Out on the “Magical Mystery Tour” the Governor is making pit stops at local GOP HQ – to rally what few troops he has – and he is calling his friends on right-wing Talk Radio. (Wow! One week away from the election and you’re still working on your base?)

With yet another poll showing his initiatives going down and (surprise!) the Governor’s participation actually dragging them down, it’s no mystery what he’s gonna be saying to the true blue Republicans out there today – HELP!

The LA Times highlights the master plan, although it really hasn’t been much of a secret: Call a Special Election, blame all of the problems on unions, target the conservative base and hope that an earthquake hits and separates the Bay Area from the rest of California.

The Governor’s office calls it “micro-targeting.” Wonder which micro-brain thought up that one?

Anyways, the subhead of today’s Times story reads, “With Schwarzenegger's initiatives lagging in polls, he hopes the state's Democratic majority and opponents in the GOP stay home.”

“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered next week's special election to take his agenda to 'the people,' but his campaign strategy relies on relatively few people showing up next Tuesday and large segments of voters staying home.

"The governor's plan — 'micro-targeting' voters, advertising in selected markets to reach them and conducting daily polls to augur the political mood — is guided by a single premise: If every Democrat and every Republican in California votes next week, Schwarzenegger's measures are likely to lose.”

The Times continues, “…most of his campaigning has been highly partisan, aimed at the core of the Republican Party. Recent public opinion surveys have shown that Schwarzenegger is having trouble persuading a sizable segment of Republicans to stand by him.” (Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2005)

This is no secret... Times columnist George Skelton said a couple weeks ago that the Governor’s consultants were hoping people would stay home: "That's fine with us," says a Schwarzenegger strategist, asking not to be identified as a gubernatorial aide who hopes certain people won't vote." (Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2005)

Funny thing is, not only is Schwarzenegger is having trouble with the general public, he’s also having a tough time getting Republican members of the Legislature to stand with him.

Guess they don’t fit into the “micro” turnout universe…