Schwarzenegger’s bipartisan appeal and respectable campaigning prove he is better fit to head Calif. than his disjointed opponent.
Shannon Kelly
Perspectives Editor
California’s gubernatorial race is by no means neck and neck since Arnold Schwarzenegger leads Phil Angelides by more than 14 points in recent polls. The big guy’s breathing room is not surprising. His moderate approach is advantageous in the blue state, and his opponent is utterly unelectable (the Hollywood heydays do not hurt Arney either).
Far-right republicans may cringe when considering parts of the incumbent’s policy, and many democrats condemn him for, well, being a republican, but he knows how to be California’s governor — with bipartisan appeal. After all, his spiel, “expand the economy and protect the environment” is sharp. The left gets global warming and alternative energy legislation and the right gets free-market economic strategies.
Angelides offers little appeal except for those who support building state programs and he shares his only tolerable policies, such as improving state infrastructure and education with Schwarzenegger.
Angelides also ignores facts and feverishly links the governor with President Bush.
“Your policies are the Bush policies, and I prefer Clinton to Bush any day,” he said at the Oct. 7 gubernatorial debate.
On crucial issues like stem cell research, reproductive choice and the environment, Schwarzenegger could not be further from hand-holding with conservatives. Of course, obscure comparisons are not uncommon for Angelides, who, also proclaimed “if our young men and women fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, surely we can ask for the most fortunate in California to pay for education.”
Education is not the only bill he wants the “most fortunate” to foot.
“I’m going to ask multimillionaires to help fund our budget,” he added after promising Californians that his primary focus as governor would be “doing the right thing by the middle class.”
This means doing the wrong thing by anyone (or any married couple) making more than $500,000 a year, whose taxes he would raise — essentially doing the wrong thing for the economy — and every Californian whose livelihood depends on it.
He wrongly pegs the middle class (people making up to $100,000 a year) powerless every time he brings up the “ladder of success” that he wants to help them climb. This is not “doing right,” and accusing the governor of unfairly treating the middle class, which is actually heavily federally subsidized, is an inaccurate portrayal of the actual situation.
Angelides’ plan to “save” the middle class by raising taxes for people making $100,000 and “closing corporate tax loopholes” (code for increasing corporate taxation), shows that he either does not understand economic principles, or he chooses to ignore them to push his senseless policy.
First of all, in a family with a combined income of $100,000, both spouses are likely working overtime and still counting pennies (just like the middle class). Increasing their taxes so that someone making $90,000 can come home an hour earlier is unjust. Also, raising taxes on corporations negatively affects the middle class. When taxed more, corporations are forced to raise the prices of their goods to make up for their losses. Being forced to increase consumer prices is bad for the middle class, bad for corporations and bad for the economy.
Pushing class warfare ideas did not change the polls for Angelides, so he went back to an old trick — the recurring Schwarzenegger-is-Bush theme.
Even though the likeness is falsely premised and horribly unproductive (polls continued shooting up in the Governor’s favor), Angelides told labor conference attendees, “Corporate big shots are doing better and better, but the middle class is struggling under George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger,” according to the Oct. 25th Los Angeles Times.
Good call. Turn ideologically dissimilar republicans in to one huge cowboy-hat-wearing, oil-guzzling monster with the president’s mug and the Governator’s guns — a terribly unfortunate visual. But do not worry — the Bush-faced beast is just as imaginary as Angelides comparisons of Schwarznegger to the unpopular president.
When he’s not comparing the governor to Bush, he’s using slander; “according to news reports, my opponent in this race was apparently, or allegedly, defending apartheid in South Africa,” he told civil rights leaders and pastors last week, according to the Oct. 19th Los Angeles Times. Needless to say, this was completely made up.
Smearing his opponent so unabashedly is a reflection of Angelides’ pitiable character and lack of integrity, not an accurate depiction of Schwarzenegger.
If someone has to work that hard to distastefully defame his challenger, then his policy, plans and principles are severely lacking and he is unfit to head this state.
The political spectrum can be put aside in California’s race for governor. Republicans, democrats and anyone in between should vote for the candidate who deterred from dishonestly attacking his opponent and, instead, focused on discussing his principled policies.
On Tuesday, vote for the bigger man.
Angelides’ background as state treasurer and his subsequent understanding of fiscal responsibility would benefit California.
Marc Choquette
Assistant Perspectives Editor
With all the election ruckus surrounding the meltdown occurring in Washington and the fight regarding the additional $3 tax to our cigarettes, it seems this year’s gubernatorial race in California has not had the attention of past races.
This year’s race pits the current “Governator,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, against current state treasurer, Phil Angelides.
Schwarzenegger, who rose to political glory on the back of the wildly unpopular Gray Davis, anticipates — like the polls — an easy re-election. Angelides, who began his political career when Arnold began his quest to be the world’s strongest man, seeks to add another rung to his political ladder with a victory.
Of course there are third-party candidates in this race, but when Ross Perot and Ralph Nader are the only names that come to mind when you think prominent third-party politicians, you know third parties in U.S. politics will never get a true say in things until maybe American Revolution II, which oddly sounds like something Schwarzenegger would have starred in back in the 1980s.
Yes, even Schwarzenegger’s readily quotable, questionably thick Austrian accent cannot seem to attract much attention to this campaign.
The problem with this disinterest in the campaign for governor is that too many people, especially younger voters, do not know enough about one candidate and perhaps too much about another.
Angelides, like most other politicians in California, simply cannot be as cool as a bodybuilder who moves from Austria to California to successfully fulfill his dreams by becoming a movie star, then marrying into the Kennedy family and adding the governorship as the formidable cherry on top as a man who truly has lived the twisted post-modern American dream. In the radically different modern America, his story is one seldom heard anymore: an immigrant coming here with little and having such success.
For Angelides to win he has to overcome this fact that he is not “cool” compared to our current governor. Unfortunately, the state of American politics is so shallow that being “cool” is paramount to winning an election (besides having a lot of money) instead of the issues themselves.
We all heard reasons in 2004 as to why we should re-elect President Bush, many of them involving Sen. John Kerry being an elitist, New England snob and Bush being the guy you want to go hunting with and accompany to the Dume Room to have a few drinks afterwards.
“Coolness” aside, Angelides has a distinct advantage in two areas. California, a long-time bastion of liberal politics (with the notable exceptions being Nixon and Reagan), has for the most part been partial to Democratic candidates.
Also, Angelides conveniently picked the right time to run as a Democrat. They seem to have as good a chance as ever on all levels to at least return the balance of power to government that our government so desperately need.
What benefits Angelides most, however, is that Schwarzenegger has not really done anything that stands out to voters to say that he really deserves another four years. Banking on his popularity and likability, combined with quick blanket statements and sound bytes, has been a recipe for victory in the past and, to his credit, why not keep it going.
But gubernatorial election results often do not follow the traditional political allegiance of the state. In Rhode Island, for example, republicans have owned the governorship for more than a decade.
This reality certainly leaves the door open for either candidate, and since not much noise has been made with this race, expect a lot of last minute wheeling and dealing for your vote on Nov. 7.
On the issues, Angelides has a bias toward fiscal responsibility that is typical of a state treasurer. With the spending debacle that was Gray Davis, democrats are in need of a fiscally sound leader to restore public confidence in their party regarding the issue.
It is not like republicans, who have always been about fiscal responsibility until recently, are seizing the opportunity. Schwarzenegger promised to return California from the brink, yet has still not been able to adequately control spending.
Angelides’ progressive action regarding the environment and alternative forms of energy would be a welcome change to a government that is sadly disinterested in protecting our most vital resources for the future and helping people where it hurts: the gas pump.
The question the voter must ask is if Schwarzenegger truly deserves another four years. Angelides summed up his feelings towards the Governor’s leadership with this quote:
“It takes more than empty soundbites to educate a child, more than scorched-earth rhetoric to balance a budget, more than celebrity swagger to care for the sick and the aged.”
11-02-2006