JUST WHAT ARNOLD NEEDS: more national air time. On Monday, Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, will appear on the season premiere of the “Oprah Winfrey Show.” It marks the couple’s first joint interview during recall–this one, with an old friend (Maria and Oprah worked together in Baltimore, in the mid-1980s, when both were cracking the news biz). Arnold needs to do better with women voters and Oprah’s viewing audience is 75 percent female. Then there’s the question of what to do about Howard Stern, who’s an inroad to another voting bloc Schwarzenegger needs: Generation Y. Arnold appeared on the shock jock’s radio show back in June, when he was promoting “Terminator 3.” Stern expects a return appearance now that the FCC has ruled his broadcast qualifies as a “bona fide news interview program” (take that, Tim Russert). An Arnold appearance wouldn’t trigger an equal-time requirement for all recall candidates, but it would trigger a Maalox moment for his staffers. They don’t want to alienate conservative Republicans. And they fear a replay of last June’s dialogue, which wasn’t exactly family values:
Stern: You will be the governor of California . . . . We will help. I’ll get you in office. But I need to be invited to the mansion.
Arnold: There is no mansion in Sacramento.
Stern: Then I need to videotape you and Maria having sex. I need some sort of perverted payment.
While Team Schwarzenegger figures out the national media strategy (Arnold also did “The O’Reilly Factor” on Wednesday, but only because that show threw a fair-and-balanced hissy fit after the candidate did an impromptu interview earlier this week with Chris Matthews), there’s a more local concern: how to play this weekend’s state Republican convention in Los Angeles. Does Arnold, the featured speaker at Saturday’s luncheon, take on his more conservative rival, state senator Tom McClintock? Does the Terminator take the high road and talk the immigrant dream during his speech, or does he throw red meat to the crowd and take on Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamante?
Trying to answer these questions is what makes recall such a great parlor game. There are plenty of moves for Arnold, and no simple solutions. But if common sense prevails, Arnold’s weekend goes something like this:
Ignore McClintock. This won’t be easy, as the moderates vs. conservatives story will dominate the convention (this is the price of being a California Republican–political reporters hit F1 on their laptops and up pops the obligatory “Republicans in Turmoil” piece). It won’t help matters if dirty tricks come into play–slipping unflattering flyers under hotel doors is a time-honored tradition at these conventions.
Arnold’s fortunate in that he speaks at Saturday’s luncheon before McClintock speaks at dinner. He won’t have to react to anything said later that night if, for instance, McClintock slaps him around for refusing to debate at the convention. The Schwarzenegger camp needs to see the big picture–and listen to what McClintock has been saying of late. For all the media fascination with the GOP divide, this one statement from a McClintock appearance on “Hannity & Colmes” stands out: “My support would go to Arnold if it looks like Arnold’s the only hope of stopping Cruz Bustamante and I think Arnold’s support would come to me if our momentum continues and they realize they can actually have their first choice and he can win.” If Arnold maintains his lead, McClintock will fall in line. So why bully or antagonize him?
Find Common Ground. Schwarzenegger and party conservatives don’t see eye-to-eye on abortion, gay rights, Proposition 54, or a litany of other social issues. But there will be one consensus in that hotel ballroom: Gray Davis has to go. If I were staffing Arnold for this event, I’d put two speech passages into his Friday night briefing package. One comes from an address delivered three years ago at the state convention by Bill Jones, the former California secretary of state. Jones, at the time the GOP’s only statewide officeholder, told the audience how’d he explain the state of affairs to his newborn granddaughter:
If she were to ask me today, I’d have no choice but to tell her of a governor who as soon as he took office put his personal ambitions ahead of the public’s needs . . . a governor who wasted a golden opportunity to make the investments necessary to secure our economic growth, and assure that the next generation of Californians shared in our prosperity. Two years ago, Gray Davis sought California’s highest office under the slogan “experience money can’t buy.” It was his way of assuring the electorate that he was prepared for the job, and ready to lead from day one. What’s happened since is the disappointing example of a leader with all the smarts and all the resources to have done wonderful things for the people, but instead chose a different path. This is a governor who cares not about reform, only re-election. Arnold’s mission this weekend should be to remind Republicans of why Davis should be recalled: Rather than lead California, the Democratic governor has been preoccupied with his lead in the polls and the size of his war chest. That takes Schwarzenegger back to the “I’m not for sale” message that is his strength as the anti-Gray candidate.
There’s another rallying force for California Republicans: Ronald Reagan. Arnold shouldn’t don brown suits, load up on Brylcreem or start likening himself to the other actor elected governor of California (it’s tempting, especially since “Arnold” is “Ronald” rearranged). But he does have Landon Parvin, a former Reagan speechwriter, as a campaign wordsmith. And the Reaganesque way with words hasn’t spoiled with time.
For this convention, why not this passage, delivered soon after Reagan took office in January 1967:
For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well the truth is, there are simple answers they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around.
The cost of California’s government is too high; it adversely affects our business climate. We have a phenomenal growth with hundreds of thousands of people joining us each year. Of course, the overall cost of government must go up to provide necessary services for these newcomers, but growth should mean increased prosperity and thus a lightening of the load each individual must bear. If this isn’t true, then you and I should be planning how we can put up a fence along the Colorado River and seal our borders.
Well, we aren’t going to do that. We are going to squeeze and cut and trim until we reduce the cost of government. It won’t be easy, nor will it be pleasant, and it will involve every department of government, starting with the governor’s office.
Leadership, integrity, fiscal conservatism, government re-examining its priorities. That’s a winning message with Republicans–even Oprah would agree.
Bill Whalen is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he follows California and national politics.
