Last week’s California elections took place in a largely pleased and detached electorate dominated by the persona and centrist positioning of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said some of the state’s top pollsters and political operatives, in separate gatherings.
Pollsters Mark Baldassare, on the left, and Mark Di Camillo, on the right, discuss the state of the California electorate and the election just past in this NWN video.
What have we learned? That Californians, in their record fifth general election in five years, are increasingly detached from voting — with participation declining to around the level of the very negative Gray Davis vs. Bill Simon gubernatorial race in 2002 — but feeling much better about the direction of their state than Americans as a whole are about the direction of the nation. That such detachment is likely to continue, with Di Camillo expecting one-third turnouts in primaries and 50% turnouts in future general elections. That California has become a “hybrid democracy,” as Baldassare puts it, with independents rising, partisan identification falling, and the electorate playing the role of approving future-oriented measures with bipartisan centrist support. And that virtually nothing that Democrat Phil Angelides tried against Schwarzenegger actually worked.
This undoubtedly surprised Angelides, the outgoing state treasurer crushed in a 17-point Schwarzenegger landslide in this putatively bluest of big states while Democrats were triumphing elsewhere across America. I spoke with Angelides early in the year, and with his longtime advisor and operative, Bob Mulholland, about the nature of the race against Schwarzenegger. Their theory of the election was very clear. That California voters were, in fact, highly engaged politically, and in a very partisan sense. That there was tremendous anger at President George W. Bush that would easily attach to Schwarzenegger. And that Schwarzenegger was a bad actor pretending to be a politician, whose standing with Californians was irreparably damaged by his disastrous 2005 special election. All that would be necessary for victory in this heavily pro-Democratic electorate, in their view, would be for Angelides to epitomize a coming national rejection of Bush-style Republicanism and to remind Californians of what they already knew about Schwarzenegger.
This was the thinking underlying the campaign we have just witnessed on the Democratic side. It was wrong, across the board.
The explanation for Angelides’ defeat coming in the Bee session from general election media consultant and strategist Bill Carrick and Angelides hands elsewhere does not reflect this fundamental reality. The current rationalization acknowledges none of this, instead focusing on Schwarzenegger’s financial and hence advertising advantages and the nasty Democratic primary, in which Angelides barely prevailed in a record low turnout, dominated by the partisans that the PPIC and Field polls show have declining influence in general elections, over ex-eBay honcho turned state Controller Steve Westly.
However, as Di Camillo points out, Schwarzenegger took the lead over Angelides, which he never relinquished — despite much spin to the contrary — back in April, weeks before Westly and Angelides engaged in their advertising slugfest, but, tellingly, after Angelides introduced himself to the electorate as a hyperpartisan. And that Schwarzenegger’s dominance paralleled a Californian sentiment, contrasting sharply with the national mood, that the state is moving in a positive direction, a Californian sentiment that increased as the campaign wore on.
Schwarzenegger campaign manager Steve Schmidt explained that the governor’s strategy was to pounce immediately after the primary, with positive personal campaigning (which came in the form of a bus tour showcasing him with an accessibility contrasting with his previous demi-imperial approach) and a heavy TV advertising campaign. The purpose of the TV ads was twofold, to remind California voters that they were feeling better about their state under the former Mr. Universe, and to drive home Angelides’ positioning as a negative, polarizing figure.
Carrick, who said in June that Schwarzenegger was wasting his money and Californians would not pay attention so early, did not speak to this in the session, but most everything Angelides tried, from the advertising to the personal campaigning — and there were many attempts to jumpstart the campaign — actually played into Schwarzenegger’s hands.
The Angelides camp poormouths the resources available to it, and they were certainly less than Schwarzenegger’s, but tens of millions of dollars were spent on his behalf on advertising after the primary. None of it worked. The Arnold equals Bush ads, much anticipated by Democratic enthusiasts, fell absolutely flat. The even more anticipated public employee union ads — reviving what I’ve called the “Village People” motif of the 2005 campaign of teacher/firefighter/cop/nurse speaking out against Schwarzenegger — moved the needle not at all.
In contrast, the Schwarzenegger approach did move the needle, decisively. Team Arnold knew that there was still an underlying liking for Schwarzenegger, and that the state was nowhere near as polarized in a partisan fashion as the activists on both sides, and Angelides and his crew, like to imagine. The stateside operation, with controversial Democratic chief of staff Susan Kennedy and moderate Republican communications director Adam Mendelsohn, devised with Schwarzenegger, wife Maria Shriver, and others the plan to move the former action superstar back to the center and work in bipartisan fashion with Democratic legislative leaders on key issues of concern to most Californians such as declining infrastructure, global warming, the minimum wage, prescription drugs, and other issues. As the pollsters noted, the governor effectively took large chunks of a possible Angelides agenda — had he ever bothered to fully articulate a positive vision for California’s future — off the table. Schwarzenegger also had luck with a tax windfall, making a happy time budget possible.
In the midst of all this, Angelides was precisely wrong on persona, positioning, and, most of all, understanding of the political situation in California. Had he been right on those scores, the many millions spent on his behalf would have begun to move the needle in his favor. They never did.
One especially interesting factor in the election was the rise of bloc voting. Fully one-third of California’s voters all selected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and former Governor Jerry Brown in their respective races for governor, senator, and attorney general. And fully one-third of California’s voters supported each of the big infrastructure bond initiatives. Only 12% opposed all the infrastructure bonds.
This represents the vital electoral core of what might be described as a new California political paradigm, a creative centrism to move the state forward. It will have major challenges ahead, notably the state’s still unresolved structural deficit and a possible economic slowdown. But the potential is there.
** NOW THIS WILL BE INTERESTING.The English language version of Al Jazeera, the pro-Islamist, largely anti-American news channel, will launch tomorrow. Utilizing on-air personalities such as David Frost meant to identify with the new potential audience, this will be the first international news channel based in the Middle East. Broadcasting from the studio in Doha, Qatar begins tomorrow at 12:00 GMT via cable, satellite, and Internet. It won’t be on a many American TV screens; negotiations with Comcast broke down. But the link will take you to what will be a retooled Al Jazeera English language web site, said to feature streaming video of the channel.
** AN INTERESTING RESULT. BLOC VOTING.Fully one-third of California’s voters all selected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and former Governor Jerry Brown in their respective races for governor, senator, and attorney general. And fully one-third of California’s voters supported each of the big infrastructure bond initiatives. Only 12% opposed all the infrastructure bonds.
** Clearly, I don’t have enough video to edit. I just shot more today, the annual election post-mortem by “The Mark and Mark Show,” California’s leading public pollsters, Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll and Mark di Camillo of the Field Poll. (I’d include the LA Times poll at the top but its appearance under the current out-of-state corporate ownership is too erratic.) Enough with celebrities and glamour and drama, time to point the camera at pollsters explaining the numbers. Let’s make some movie magic!
The video (raw footage of which I am now going to watch and edit) will acompany tomorrow morning’s column, which will deal with the polling conclusions and the partial transcript, released late yesterday afternoon, of the Sacramento Bee’s session late last week with campaign strategists.
** 12:30 PM WEBCAST. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger keynotes the annual California Policy Conference of the Pat Brown Institute at 12:30 PM today in LA. The event will be webcast live. The Pat Brown Institute was established by the late two-term Governor of California Edmund G. “Pat” Brown to study public affairs.
** A MATTER OF INTELLIGENCE. THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, THAT IS. Tongues are wagging about incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s move to intervene in the race for House Majority Leader between Congressman Steny Hoyer, the current Democratic Whip, and Congressman John Murtha, her old friend. She backs Murtha, a decorated Marine Corps vet, who managed her campaigns for House leadership and gained fame for coming out against the Iraq War policy. That’s actually not very surprising. Pelosi is showing loyalty to an important friend and backer who helped the Democrats in the national debate on Iraq. He may or may not win, but he is a very credible choice.
Pelosi is a very smart and capable politician. Harman may be a prickly character at times, and to the right of the very liberal House leadership coming into power, but she is the Democrat best positioned and qualified on the Intelligence Committee and she is a smart Democrat. Pelosi can do better than this.
In winning his second 17-point landslide election as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger hewed to the center. Yet many doubted to the end that it is his natural course, or that he will stay there.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in this NWN video, stays centered in his re-election victory speech.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger of this campaign and of today is the Schwarzenegger I talked with in 2002 and 2003 as he contemplated running for governor. In 2002, as he did his shakedown cruise in politics, the Proposition 49 after school programs initiative, a crucial part of the scenario in which he would run for governor in the regular election of 2006. And in 2003 as he examined the emerging recall of then Governor Gray Davis, and whether he could parachute into a chaotic race to drive the recall home and win the governorship.
Schwarzenegger and his very able wife, Maria Shriver, who was not part of the planning to run for governor in 2003 but who was instrumental in reviving his governorship, talked up bipartisan centrism — the mode he talked of all year and pledged anew to follow in his victory speech — in conversation and at dinner parties till late in 2004.
Even as he attempted to defeat Democratic Assembly candidates running in legislative districts largely gerrymandered for Democrats in 2004, Schwarzenegger insisted he was “a bipartisan guy.” He was bipartisan enough to have been disappointed that he and then Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, the legendary San Francisco liberal who served in Austria as a member of the U.S. Army, were prevented by 2004’s state budget impasse from traveling to Schwarzenegger’s homeland.
In 2005, Schwarzenegger famously went on a different path, with his “Year of Reform” special election initiative agenda, wrongly convinced he should be more of a partisan warrior. But even there, the initiatives all addressed areas of legitimate concern and, ironically, could have been sold more successfully as centrist good government measures even with their flaws.
Some say that Schwarzenegger won re-election without being at all specific on the issues. That’s fairly true in one sense. And not at all true in another sense.
Schwarzenegger was extremely specific on what might be called the Future Agenda. It dominated his campaign, in fact. The bipartisan infrastructure bonds, which he talked of in 2002 and 2003 and championed in his State of the State address, were centerpieces of his campaign. So, too, was California’s landmark anti-global warming law, and moves to promote renewable energy and stem cell research. All of these were things he had spoken of wanting to do years ago.
What might be described as the Now Agenda — health care, education, prisons, finally balancing the state budget, and so on — was much less specific. Not that his demolished Democratic opponent, outgoing Treasurer Phil Angelides, was all that specific, either. The centerpiece of Angelides’ campaign, raising taxes on the wealthy and closing corporate tax loopholes, remained remarkably unspecific for the seven months after he unveiled it despite his claim that it was an “exact” program.
Despite months of promises and assertions, the Angelides campaign never spelled out what “loopholes” it would close. The plan was never “on the web site,” as Angelides tried to claim with me. In the end, the specifics of the self-styled policy wonk’s tax program, like the specifics of his energy plan and his universal health care plan and his plan to find big new efficiencies in state government, remained vague, a set of rhetorical talking points, a matter to be addressed after his election as governor.
But he was never going to be the governor. The man who was and is going to to be the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, promises to stay centered. It won’t always be easy. There will be major cross currents ahead, especially with the Now Agenda.
A big new approach to health care, the chronic prison crisis, upgrading education, balancing the budget — without the cuts that even conservative Republicans don’t actually want, and how much easier it would be had he gone for a relatively small tax increase in 2004 — all these things will have degrees of difficulty. But the former action superstar insists now, as he did in 2002 and 2003, that it will be done in the way we have witnessed all this year, the way in which he seems most comfortable as a political figure. “The action,” he says, “is in the center.”
** After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Bush called Iran a “threat to world peace.” Both leaders talked of the need to impose sanctions on Iran to bring its nuclear program to an end. Bush didn’t address the call to engage Iran to help settle the Iraq situation. Of course, he was hardly likely to given the unresolved nuclear situation. And having dumped Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary immediately after the Republicans’ national defeat and loss of the House and Senate, he couldn’t afford to seem in in more of a giving mode. What does Iran want that the US can afford to give?
** ABOUT THAT PRISON GUARDS MOVE. Shortly after the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s landslide re-election, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the state’s powerful prison guards union, began running this TV ad in limited rotation in several markets. The union “congratulates” Schwarzenegger on his victory and complains about his record on the prison system. It’s an odd move in that they had postured about going after him with a huge independent expenditure campaign — buying, months in advance, $5 million of TV ad time for the final two weeks of the campaign and intimating that there was much more money where that came from — and then backed down. Indeed, the CCPOA ended up with a low-key campaign season. They sued, unsuccessfully, to block a Schwarzenegger move to ship some prisoners out of state to alleviate the overcrowding problem.
Do they expect the former action superstar to be intimidated by a group that backed away from taking him on in the election, an election in which he crushed their endorsed candidate? That’s not how it works on the street.
The prisons are a mess, but most of the criticism of Schwarzenegger comes for him accommodating the union for a time after taking it on. The federal court threatening to take over aspects of the system identify the union as the major problem. This is going to be fascinating to watch.
** A CONSEQUENTIAL DAY IN PRESIDENTIAL AND GLOBAL POLITICS. As President George W. Bush and members of his national security team meet with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former House Intelligence Chairman Lee Hamilton, which is expected to recommend that the US engage with Iran and Syria to reach a settlement in Iraq, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in Washington preparing to meet with Bush.
Since, in at least some respects, losing the Israel-Hezbollah War earlier this year, Olmert has had to strike a deal with the ultra-rightist Yisrael Beiteinu party in order to stay in power. That party’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is now Israel’s minister of strategic affairs.
It is not judged to be in Israel’s interest for America to bargain with Iran, backer of Hezbollah. It is in neither America nor Israel’s interest for Iran to succeed in developing a nuclear weapons program. Iran, of course, would want the US to restrain Israel, at the least, from striking at Iran’s nuclear program. But can the US restrain Israel, which destroyed Iraq’s nuclear program a quarter century ago in a unilateral strike?
As an aside, I’m on the Pentagon press list. For the last few years, I have been getting all the casualty reports. Which in this war amounts only to the dead, although “casualty” is actually a term that includes the wounded, as well. These reports, which I’ve lately taken to deleting unread, given the depressing regularity of the numbers and circumstances, have an overwhelming number of people falling prey to IEDs, the so-called improvised explosive devices, in urban areas.
And with regard to redeployment, however it is defined, the debate is around a specific timeline vs. an unspecific timeline. Staying and winning is an approach that does not seem to be in play. Of course, how that might be accomplished remains very unclear.
** Well, after resting yesterday I realize how tired I am. I have hours of video footage shot over the last week of the campaign and its immediate aftermath. All of which needs to be edited, so it will be rolled out over the next few weeks keyed to pertinent columns. It was shot with an eye to then forthcoming outcomes. Meanwhile, NWN will ease into the post-election period as a new media site on political journalism, publishing every day, increasingly pivoting intellectually to presidential politics while maintaining the strong California focus.
** The Sunday after every California gubernatorial election, the Sacramento Bee’s Sunday Forum section runs lengthy excerpts of a discussion the paper sponsors between top strategists for the gubernatorial campaigns. But not this Sunday. I don’t know why not, but I’m told that excerpts from the transcript of the discussion — which included Schwarzenegger strategist Steve Schmidt, Angelides strategist Bill Carrick, Westly strategist Garry South, and labor strategist Gail Kaufman — wlll be available online this week, perhaps on Monday. From the coverage so far in the Bee, it seems the Republican view was familiar, the Democratic view defensive (except for South, of course). When the material is available, it will be linked to here, with NWN analysis and commentary.
He becomes the second Democrat expected to run to take himself out of the running, following centrist former Virginia Governor Mark Warner. (The third if you count John Kerry, whose action was inadvertent.)
Feingold is a focused, thoughtful, and articulate campaigner who many had thought would carry the anti-war banner into the Democratic presidential primaries. Best known for his co-authorship of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act, he had a good shot at a large niche of the primary vote. From there, who knows?
But he told supporters in an e-mail last night that he preferred to work as part of the newfound Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. To be sure, running for president is a very taxing enterprise. But it may also be that he judged the core “netroots” anti-war constituency — which championed Ned Lamont‘s upset in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary over Joe Lieberman, only to see the newly independent Lieberman turn around and win in a landslide in the general election — to be insufficient to mount a winning primary campaign.
My comment about Kerry was at least partly tongue in cheek. He has not removed himself from the 2008 primary field. But he may effectively have done so with his notorious comments at a Phil Angelides for Governor rally in LA the week before the election, when he seemed to say students who don’t apply themselves to get ahead end up “stuck in Iraq.”
However he meant it, and the decorated Vietnam veteran Kerry insists it was a mangled crack at George W. Bush and not at our troops, it’s the sort of thing you say among rabid hyperpartisans, which was the toxic milieu of the Angelides campaign. He may not have demurred from a second campaign, but the 2004 Democratic nominee for president may as well.
** Today is Veterans’ Day. It’s striking how significant a role vets played in the national election just past — for what is usually the more peace-oriented party — and how few vets figure in statewide California politics. Were it not for one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers of the Vietnam War, former Navy Secretary and distinguished novelist James Webb, the Democrats would not have the U.S. Senate today. (Well, the advent of small video cameras and the rise of YouTube had something to do with it, as well.) In winning his cliffhanger Virginia Senate race with erstwhile conservative Republican presidential prospect George Allen, Webb provided the 51st Democratic vote in the Senate. War heroes helped the Democrats gain the House, as well.
In California, however, vets are far less prominent. Among the Golden State’s statewide elected officials, only Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a military veteran. He was in the Army. The Austrian Army. In which he drove a tank. Austria, of course, is one of America’s NATO allies. But no one else in statewide office is a vet. Former Governor Gray Davis was a U.S. Army captain in the Vietnam War, decorated for meritorious achievement with the Bronze Star. But no one else. Lieutenant Governor-elect John Garamendi served in a different way, in the Peace Corps. Former Governor and Attorney General-elect Jerry Brown was on the board of the U.S. Air Force Academy.
I’m not sure what that says, other than that the political class is increasingly out of touch with an important part of American life, especially in time of war.
** CONAN COMPOSER PASSES ON.Outstanding film composer Basil Poledouris, ailing from cancer, passed away on Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 61. Poledouris was a master of the classic orchestral film score and was especially known for his action-oriented scores. He composed what is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s favorite score among his own movies for Conan the Barbarian. (Schwarzenegger’s second favorite score among his own movies is the Jerry Goldsmith score for Total Recall.) Poledouris also scored the Conan sequel and likely would have done the honors for the long-in-the-works King Conan, delayed by Schwarzenegger’s pair of 17-point landslide elections as governor of California. Responsible for the propulsive scores to The Hunt For Red October and Starship Troopers, the composer did some of his best, most honored work for Lonesome Dove, providing a sweeping, elegiac score for the classic closing of the Old West miniseries based on Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
With Republicans hammered nationally and Democrats taking both houses of Congress in a vote of no confidence in the Bush Presidency, could the second landslide election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California offer a new path forward for a Grand Old Party? Many think so. But politicians would have to embrace a more nonpartisan way. And, even more challengingly, find solutions for Iraq and the Terror War.
My election night interview with Schwarzenegger chief strategist, and former Bush chief strategist, Matthew Dowd at the Beverly Hilton.
In this era in which hyperpartisans — on both far sides of the aisle — have become adept at screaming their mantras and building their straw men, frequently dominating what passes for “debate,” something very interesting is happening in California.
The partisans are beginning to evaporate.
In 1990, California had 12 million voters registered as members of the two major parties. Today, after an increase of 5.7 million in the adult population, 3.4 million in the population of eligible voters, and about 2 million in the number of registered voters, we still have only 12 million voters registered to the two major parties. Together, the Democratic and Republican parties have not grown at all in California.
One quarter of the voters in California’s election this year were self-described independents. Schwarzenegger won them overwhelmingly, while holding all but a handful of his fellow Republicans and picking off a quarter of the Democrats.
His winning approach, giving him a landslide win in an ostensibly very Democratic state in the midst of an anti-Republican wave, is very different from the norm in politics.
The two parties increasingly talk to their bases. Why is that? It’s what they are used to doing. It’s what they enjoy doing as they reflect the hyperpartisan wars in Washington. And it’s what makes sense to the institutional base of the parties, given the partisan gerrymandering both Democrats and Republicans regularly conspire in to make general elections in legislative and congressional districts in California just about as competitive as contests for the old Supreme Soviet.
But in statewide politics, this approach totally misses the mark.
As former Governor Gray Davis, elected as a centrist Democrat in 1998, increasingly followed along with the Democratic-dominated state Legislature, he fell more and more out of phase with the overall statewide electorate. Although he won a surprisingly narrow re-election over a right-wing Republican in 2002, the state’s out of control budget and past public dismay over his handling of an earlier electric power crisis set him up for what became the great California recall of 2003.
Parachuting into the center of things was action movie superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. Running as a Republican promising to eschew partisan politics, Schwarzenegger weathered some rough going but swept to a landslide victory.
After adopting an unsuccessful partisan tone of his own last year in pursuing several unsuccessful ballot initiatives — which, ironically, could have been sold more effectively from the center — the former Mr. Universe has returned to the approach which brought him a smashing electoral victory in his first campaign and record high popularity ratings during his first year as California’s governor.
In doing so, his campaign was geared almost entirely to appeal to the burgeoning number of independent voters, the voters he won when he was elected but lost last year.
The themes that work with independent voters are themes of a creative center. Support for government coupled with skepticism about governmental efficiency and new taxes. Tolerance and support for individual rights and diversity coupled with support for law and order programs. Strong support for environmental protection coupled with strong support for technological innovation and entrepreneurship. All that has worked spectacularly well for Schwarzenegger while the conventional Republicans of the partisan right and the conventional Democrats of the partisan left scramble for attention and support.
President George W. Bush sounded a little after this election like Schwarzenegger last year when he apologized for the special election, sounding a return to a bipartisan theme. Except for the apology part, of course, and the return to bipartisanship. Bush was only in bipartisan mode after 9/11, it was not part of his fundamental approach to the presidency. And the post-9/11 era, which might have marked a sea change in American life similar to collegial wartime atmospheres of the past, quickly turned into very partisan attitudes at home and very nationalist attitudes abroad.
Certainly people like the inclusive Schwarzenegger style better. But how that style, and a bipartisan centrist approach, would play in dealing with the mess in Iraq and the coming challenges of the Terror War are unknown.
We’ll be exploring that unknown as part of the emerging politics of 2008.
** ARNOLD VS. BOXER? Rumor has it that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is planning to run in four years against Democratic incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer. After NWN readers got into some considerable speculation about this, I talked with a Schwarzenegger political advisor about what’s going on. He says there is no plan to take on Boxer in 2010, when the senator will be ending her third term. Schwarzenegger’s political team, he says, is considering possible options for the future, which they may present to him in the future. One option includes a look at California’s two U.S. Senate seats. The one currently held by Boxer. And the one to which Dianne Feinstein was just re-elected, but only in the event the senator, who has a good relationship with Schwarzenegger, did not run for another term in 2012.
Some people think Schwarzenegger, who just won election to the governorship by the second 17-point landslide in a row, would never serve in the Senate, that he is too independent, that he would not want to be one of 100. That, I’m told, is not accurate. What is accurate is that he has a family, and there are strains placed on his family life as a result of being governor. The former action superstar lives in a hotel in Sacramento, the Hyatt Regency at Capitol Park. His living situation is not unlike being on location for a movie, a situation with which he is very familiar. Yet this location lasts for seven years. Being able to readily travel between the capital and his LA home makes thing much easier. Serving in the Senate, however, would be another matter. The hundreds of miles Schwarzenegger flies in his jet today would become thousands of miles in that scenario.
** California Assembly Republicans picked a new leader today. It’s another previously obscure legislator, this time Assemblyman Mike Villines. He is described by some as a hardcore conservative. He represents the Fresno area, and is a graduate of Fresno State. A one-time advance man for former Governor Pete Wilson, he was chief of staff for another hardcore conservative, who was just blown out by Jerry Brown in the race for state attorney general, outgoing state Senator Chuck Poochigian. Villines replaces Assemblyman George Plescia, who himself replaced congressional seat-seeking Kevin McCarthy earlier this year. Despite two serious challenges — including the much hyped by Democrats attempt to defeat Palm Springs area Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia — Assembly Republicans lost no seats this year.
** Virginia Senator George Allen has formally conceded the Dominion State’s hardfought U.S. Senate race to former U.S. Navy Secretary James Webb. The Vietnam War Marine hero’s victory gives the Democrats their 51st vote in the organization of the U.S. Senate and will make Nevada Senator Harry Reid the new Majority Leader of the United States Senate. Which will take some of the pressure off new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In winning his landslide re-election victory, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also found most other campaigns going his way. Only the narrow defeat of his appointed secretary of state, Bruce McPherson, could be counted as an actual setback, and not a major one at that.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrates his massive victory with Maria Shriver, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and family and friends at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in this NWN video.
First, of course, was the passage of all the Big Bang Bonds infrastructure initiatives that he supported. Championing the concept of rebuilding California in his State of the State address, working out the actual package with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, then campaigning for it for the last weeks of the campaign, Schwarzenegger lays claim to the enactment of California’s biggest public works program since the Pat Brown era of the 1960s.
The defeat of all the tax measures on the ballot was right in line with the Arnold playbook, as was the landslide passage of the Jessica’s Law anti-child molester initiative and the defeat of the measure which would have made eminent domain much more difficult for public works projects.
The outcomes of the other races for statewide office also accrued mostly to Schwarzenegger’s advantage.
The former Mr. Universe endorsed the Republican ticket, with the exception of the hard right nominee against Senator Dianne Feinstein, but did not campaign for it, focusing instead on his favored Rebuild California infrastructure bonds package.
Toward the end of the campaign, Schwarzenegger criticized his running mate, conservative darling Tom McClintock, for his opposition to the bonds package (he supported only the measure to prevent massive flooding), declaring him “totally wrong” on the matter and saying California would never build for the future with McClintock’s approach. McClintock would have been a problematic lieutenant governor for Schwarzenegger, often disagreeing with him on signature issues such as global warming, renewable energy, infrastructure, and stem cell research. The new lieutenant governor, John Garamendi, a center/left figure, is much more aligned with Schwarzenegger on such issues, and has better personal chemistry.
The massive victory of former Governor Jerry Brown for the powerhouse post of state attorney general also accrues to Schwarzenegger’s advantage. Like Schwarzenegger, the two-term Oakland mayor has embraced bipartisanship and a pragmatic approach to most issues. Like Schwarzenegger, he champions efforts to fight global warming and develop renewable energy — Brown having been the first major American political figure to do so, decades ahead of the curve — and advocates on behalf of stem cell research and new technologies in general. Brown’s Republican foe, vanquished by nearly 20 points, is against all those things.
In addition, with the two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination at hand, Schwarzenegger benefits by having another star on the stage with him. He looks stronger when he has strong personalities to play off of.
The former governor actually has already been allied with the present governor on a number of other issues, such as the debt recovery bonds inititiative in early 2004, local government funding, and the dramatic last minute defeat of the Proposition 66 initiative to cut back on three strikes and you’re out sentencing requirements. Brown was a special guest of Schwarzenegger at this year’s State of the State address and appeared with him as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bonds push earlier this year.
The defeat of McPherson, who Schwarzenegger appointed as secretary of state to replace elected Democrat Kevin Shelley, who resigned after thoroughly misusing his office, is a setback, but not a major one. The office which, despite its name, amounts to being the state’s chief elections officer, is a largely ministerial office. Schwarzenegger should have no problem working with the very capable Democrat who won the race, LA area state Senator Debra Bowen.
The fact that the very conservative Republican nominee for state controller, Tony Strickland, also lost (to Democrat John Chiang), means that Schwarzenegger’s good friend Steve Poizner is the only other Republican in statewide office.
Had McClintock, for example, been elected lieutenant governor, he would have been the favorite to claim the Republican’s gubernatorial nomination in four years, when Schwarzenegger must leave the governorship due to term limits. Although very popular with conservative Republicans, McClintock’s views would have provided a target rich environment in a high-profile race for the governorship. Now Poizner, a super-rich Silicon Valley entrepreneur and good friend of Schwarzenegger, who encouraged him to run, has the office of state insurance commissioner, should he so choose, with which to develop the bona fides to take on what will certainly be a stronger Democratic nominee for governor in 2010.
THE SHAPE OF SCHWARZENEGGER’S LANDSLIDE — which came, paradoxically, in the face of a big national Democratic wave — was especially striking. Despite facing an opponent, outgoing Treasurer Phil Angelides, who pitched his entire campaign to Democrats, the former action superstar made enormous inroads into constituencies long viewed as part of the Democratic base.
Notwithstanding the unremitting opposition of organized labor leaders, who had smashed his special election agenda a year ago, Schwarzenegger won 45% of the union household vote to Angelides’ 49%. He garnered an amazing 27% of the African-American vote, 39% of the Latino vote, and 62% of the Asian-American vote.
It all contributed greatly to a largely across the board triumph for Schwarzenegger, in which most all outcomes accrued to his decided advantage.
** 5:40 PM: DEMOCRATS HAVE JUST TAKEN CONTROL OF THE U.S. SENATE with the AP calling that squeaker Virginia Senate race for former U.S. Navy Secretary James Webb. He defeats incumbent Senator and former Governor George Allen, who entered his re-election campaign as a conservative favorite for the 2008 Republican presidential campaign. But in Webb, Allen, the son of a famous football coach with no military experience, faced one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers of the Vietnam War. Allen stumbled badly in the infamous “Macaca” YouTube incident. He was further troubled by the ongoing downturn in Iraq. He tried to adjust his previous positioning as a cheerleader for the Iraq policy, but ultimately to no avail.
** Now we know what it takes for President George W. Bush to acknowledge the obvious, a national electoral walloping. That’s what it took for him to fire the architect of his obviously failed Iraq policy, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Is Islamic Jihadism at war with America? Obviously. Can the current Iraq policy be described in any way as a success? Obviously not. Obstinacy does not equal Churchillianism.
The stock market hit a record high following Rumsfeld’s ouster.
** RUNNING ON EMPTY. As you might guess, after 10 months of doing this every day, I’m fairly run down, as you can tell from my voice and the circles under my eyes in the PJM election videos. Yet election day, and night, was again quite productive. I had conversations with many people, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Steve Westly, and Warren Beatty, and shot a lot of video footage, some of quite dynamic. You will, energy permitting, see a brief and rather spectacular video clip tomorrow.
** Here’s what the final results look like in California’s statewide races as of 4 PM. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger won a huge victory over his Democratic challenger, outgoing Treasurer Phil Angelides, 56% to 39%. Former Governor Jerry Brown won an even bigger victory in his race for the state’s second most powerful constitutional office, attorney general, demolishing Republican Chuck Poochigian, 57% to 38%.
Moderate Republican Steve Poizner crushed Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante in the race for state insurance commissioner, 51% to 39%. Democrat John Chiang ripped Republican Tony Strickland in the race for state controller, 51% to 40%.
Democrat John Garamendi defeated conservative darling Tom McClintock for lieutenant governor, 50% to 45%. Democrat Debra Bowen beat appointed Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, 49% to 45%.
And in the two races featuring Republican candidates who failed to mount anything approaching serious campaigns, Democrat Dianne Feinstein triumphed again for the U.S. Senate, 60% to 35%, and Democrat Bill Lockyer was elected state treasurer, 55% to 37%.
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