There is no longer any doubt about the tactics Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger has followed since last November, when he suffered
the largest defeat of his short political career in the special
election he called against the advice of his top advisers. Nor is
there much doubt those tactics are working.
There is no longer any doubt about the tactics Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has followed since last November, when he suffered the largest defeat of his short political career in the special election he called against the advice of his top advisers. Nor is there much doubt those tactics are working.
In the nine months since then, the governor has maintained a steadily civil demeanor, stifling any impulses he might have had to add new insults to the “girlie men” and “losers” epithets he tried to hang on his opponents in the previous year. He also plainly saw that even his celebrity would not help him if he pushed an ultra-right agenda in this now mostly Democratic state.
Schwarzenegger changed both his tone and his program, coming off as a steadfast moderate in both behavior and policy agenda.
The result has been a steady rise in the polls, even though many Californians remain skeptical that the centrist Schwarzenegger is the genuine article.
Now it’s time for his Democratic re-election rival Phil Angelides to do a reassessment of his own. So far, no poll shows much success from the mostly reactive approach he’s taken since winning his party’s nomination in a close spring primary election.
If Angelides is to have any hope against Schwarzenegger’s celebrity, his big money support, his new positions and his charisma, he’s got to change his approach. It’s time to stop being a studious-looking and -sounding policy wonk and become an aggressive populist candidate. The later Angelides does this, the less chance he’ll have to upset Schwarzenegger this fall.
What does this mean? First, there will have to be a change in tactics. From late 2003 until late 2005, when there was no ongoing election campaign, it was fine to be a reactive “anti-Arnold” – the title Angelides bestowed upon himself as he opposed the then-conservative, anti-union Schwarzenegger agenda.
But Angelides is down in almost every poll this summer and he’s got to do something aggressive, not merely go about the state essentially saying he’d do the same things as Schwarzenegger, only better.
That’s basically what it means when Angelides stages press conferences to stress his support for a continued moratorium on coastal oil drilling or when he waits weeks to join in after Schwarzenegger announces his backing for the Proposition 83 “Jessica’s Law” putting new controls on the activities and residency rights of paroled sex offenders.
In these cases and others, Angelides maintains he can do better than Schwarzenegger, amplifying his support to go beyond what Schwarzenegger backs. But he still comes off as a “me-too” candidate.
Instead, Angelides needs to grab the initiative. He needs to make a constant theme of indexed minimum wages in order to cement support from Latinos, young voters and blacks who in the 2003 recall election voted in large numbers for Schwarzenegger because they thought it was “cool.”
Mostly, though, he needs to recognize that he will not win unless he can make hay with the distrust Schwarzenegger sowed by ignoring and reneging on the promises he made in his first two years as an active politician.
Angelides must advertise heavily the fact that Schwarzenegger foreswore campaign donations from special interests of all kinds on the very day he announced for office – and since then has set records for any state politician anywhere in milking donations from developers, oil companies, chemical executives, car dealers and myriad other special interests.
TV commercials that juxtapose video of Schwarzenegger making the promise with a list of his prominent donors would be very effective, since the governor could not deny reality, even if he tried to ignore it.
Ads that show the governor admitting his history as a groper of women and his promise to hire a private investigator to look into his own past behavior – along with his failure to follow through in any way – might also help.
And then there are the broken policy promises, from a pledge to fully fund education to the extent required by the 1988 Proposition 98 – a pledge not kept until two years later – and his pledges to get California its fair share of federal budget dollars. There could be many more, each appealing to one constituency or another.
Distrust for Schwarzenegger is the key to any chance for Angelides because to most voters, he is an unknown compared with the governor. He can only win on an anti-Schwarzenegger vote.
As long as half or nearly half the voters trust Arnold, his re-election will be fairly certain. But if Angelides manages to revive the doubts Schwarzenegger raised during 2004 and 2005 about his own trustworthiness, he will have a good shot at an upset.
But simply shouting “me, too, and a little better” – about all Angelides has done so far – will not be enough.
Tom Elias is a syndicated columnist and author of several books.
