Will Bush gain with Arnold in? Hell yes! They will have to spend a lot more money to hold the State.
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GOVERNATOR HAS BUSH CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
By DEBORAH ORIN - NY POST
October 2, 2003 -- SUDDENLY, it looks as if Arnold Schwarzenegger really will be California's next Governator. That has Republicans sporting giant grins as they ponder how that would change the political landscape and help boost President Bush in the 2004 election.
For starters, it means any Democratic 2004 candidate stumping in California will have to go against the Terminator, who says Bush is doing a great job in Iraq and backed the war. Schwarzenegger was one of the few Hollywood stars to do a Bob Hope and visit U.S. troops.
"It opens the possibility that Bush can win California. I think people want to vote for something. They don't want to vote against something, and the 2004 Democrats all have a negative message," said GOP pollster John McLaughlin, who is part of Arnold's team.
"If California is coming back and the national economy is coming back, it's great for us. That's why Arnold is important - he represents optimism. He represents hope."
A reinvigorated California GOP, united around a charismatic new Gov. Arnold would be far more powerful than a split and squabbling party. It would force Democrats to fight (and spend big bucks) to win California in 2004 because they can't win the White House without it.
That's why every Dem 2004 candidate plus former President Bill Clinton raced out to California to try to rescue super-unpopular Democratic Gov. Gray Davis from recall.
Not so fast, says California-based Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who insists a Schwarzenegger win could actually be "marginally bad for Bush" because Arnold and the GOP will now get blamed for a California economy "that's bad and probably not going to get better."
Schwarzenegger "is still going to have to work with a Democratic legislature, and they're not going to back a lot of the things he wants, and if he does a lot of controversial stuff, he's going to get recalled himself," Carrick adds.
An Arnold win would also leave Democrats fractured and, some activists say, create a nasty split between Latinos and the Democratic establishment because Latino governor wannabe Cruz Bustamante had trouble raising money from California's usual Democratic donors.
In New York, many Latinos sat on their hands after they decided 2001 Democratic mayoral wannabe Fernando Ferrer got dissed by the Dems. Result: a Republican mayor. California Dems don't want to face that kind of political hangover in 2004. Or the muscleman's clout.
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