Good politics is usually defined as anything that gets votes for
a candidate. Honest politics means telling the voters what you will
really do if elected.
Good politics is usually defined as anything that gets votes for a candidate. Honest politics means telling the voters what you will really do if elected.
The jury is still out on which sort of politics are practiced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
For sure, he frequently uses sleight of hand and illusion to position himself in ways more compatible to most Californians than what he’s really done.
One example came when Schwarzenegger went before a bank of 16 television cameras to propose a “low-cost prescription drug plan” he said would lower the cost of needed medicines for millions of Californians. Good politics, no doubt, because as his press release pointed out, the high cost of prescriptions is “one of the most important consumer issues in California.”
But was it honest politics? That’s a legitimate question in light of the governor’s concerted campaigning last year against the defeated Proposition 79, which would have forced pharmaceutical companies to offer drug discounts in California.
Schwarzenegger instead promoted a voluntary program where drug companies could offer discounts if they wished. None has done so yet, and Schwarzenegger’s new plan would give them at least five more years to act.
Meanwhile, he’s vetoed six bills aiming to lower drug costs in California, including one requiring the state to reimport some drugs from Canada at the reduced prices prevailing there and others to set up a Web site posting information on drug prices, including comparisons of drug prices here and in Canada.
Does Schwarzenegger really favor cheaper drugs, as he says? Or does he favor continued windfall profits for pharmaceutical companies, which donate millions to his various campaign committees? That’s a question for voters to decide by comparing the governor’s words with what he does.
Then there’s the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming. Upon seeing former Vice President Al Gore’s movie warning of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Schwarzenegger allowed that he “loved” the film and that Gore is right to go about the world warning of imminent danger. He staged a “fantastic” photo op with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to sign an essentially toothless agreement to fight global warming together. Good politics in a state that his re-election challenger Phil Angelides calls “the home of 80 percent of the world’s environmental activists.”
But honest politics? That’s for voters to decide after they watch the incumbent’s efforts to soften tough anti-greenhouse gas bills now working their way through the Legislature.
Similarly, it was good politics for Scharzenegger to announce as he declared for office in 2003 that he would take no campaign donations from any special interests. After all, the Gray Davis recall election he was entering had been spurred largely by Davis’ apparent practice of “pay-to-play” government.
But was it honest politics? That’s another one for voters to ponder in the light of Schwarzenegger taking more than $200 million over three years from corporations and executives of businesses, most of whom do business with state government.
The same with campaign finance reform. Schwarzenegger vows repeatedly to clean up politics, including a proposal to ban campaign contributions during the entire state budget approval process. Good politics, for sure.
But is it honest politics? Voters should decide based on Schwarzenegger’s record. Rather than foreswearing fundraising during the budget process this year, the governor instead raised tens of millions of dollars. And he opposes Proposition 89, with its planned public financing of campaigns as a means of diminishing the influence of big donors. His reason: the proposition proposes a miniscule 0.2 percent increase in the corporate tax rate to raise the needed money.
If Republican Schwarzenegger wins re-election in this now predominantly Democratic state using these tactics and others, it will surely have been a classic in good politics. It will also mean that voters have concluded that his politics were at least honest enough to suit them.
Tom Elias is author of the book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated second edition. His e-mail address is [email protected]
