Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (37127)	8/14/2003 11:05:25 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Connecting with the voters By Donald Lambro URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030813-091815-4248r.htm Arnold Schwarzenegger, the action superhero now pumping up California politics, is poised to recapture the governorship for the Republican Party. With Gov. Gray Davis' administration collapsing, and Democrats deeply divided about whether to save it, Mr. Schwarzenegger dominates the crowded recall scene. Though a political neophyte, he exudes refreshing self-confidence and knows how to play the media for maximum exposure — beginning with his surprise announcement on Jay Leno's show last week. California is in desperate need of leadership, having been paralyzed by Mr. Davis and sinking under the weight of a nearly $40 billion budget deficit. Businesses and jobs are leaving, and the tax revenue is plummeting. Nearly half the Democrats who helped re-elect Mr. Davis now want him booted out of office, according to recent polls. So it's refreshing to hear Arnold's clarion call — "it's time to clean house in Sacramento" — instead of the same, old finger-pointing and backpedaling of the current governor. In a state with a huge immigrant population, Schwarzenegger has wrapped his candidacy in his own immigrant story (coming here from Austria "with empty pockets, but with big hopes and dreams") that seems designed to connect with the state's huge immigrant, Asian and Hispanic populations — who will probably decide who will be the next governor. "The immigrant persona is so critical for Schwarzenegger," says one high-ranking Republican Party observer. "California is the ultimate immigrant state. He can become the embodiment of that." "If an immigrant American can govern California successfully as a Republican, that has the potential for changing the perception of the Republican Party in that state significantly," says the observer, who asked not to be identified. But Mr. Schwarzenegger has yet to fully define himself beyond this in terms of an agenda that can pull the state out of the hole Mr. Davis put it in. The news media and pundits have been feeding the notion that beyond his celebrity, Mr. Schwarzenegger does not have any deep political beliefs of his own. In fact he has deep-set political beliefs in the power of capitalism, deregulation and free markets to create economic prosperity. With a bachelor's degree in business, he has attended events sponsored by the Reason Foundation, a West Coast-based libertarian policy institute that champions privatization of state-run functions. His reading includes books by Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist best know for his seminal free-market work, "The Road to Serfdom." More than a decade ago, when Mr. Schwarzenegger was still building his movie career, he was also a huge fan of free-market economist Milton Friedman and the best-selling book he wrote with his wife, Rose, "Free To Choose." Sometime after Mr. Friedman filmed a popular PBS series based on that book, Mr. Schwarzenegger taped a laudatory introduction to a reissue of the programs. He not only believed in free-market economics, he said he had lived it — going from a socialist country like Austria, where "you can hear 18-year-olds talking about their [government] pensions, to "America, where the government wasn't always breathing down your neck." If you are looking for further clues about Mr. Schwarzenegger's brand of politics, listen to his very first news conference where he says getting businesses to come back to California and restoring economic confidence will be his very first job as governor. But, clearly, Mr. Schwarzenegger does not buy into the entire conservative agenda. He is by and large liberal to moderate on social issues, though he believes in strengthening families, the value of hard work and getting an education and keeping kids on the straight and narrow path through after school programs that keep them off the streets and out of trouble. Could Mr. Schwarzenegger successfully govern the biggest state in the country? That is the biggest question that the voters will answer when they go to the polls Oct. 7. But I'm betting he can. His self-confidence in his abilities stem in large part from his own rags-to-riches story. He built a career and a real estate business that has made him one of the richest and most successful leaders in the movie industry. He also exudes a refreshing common sense about what needs to be done to turn the state around: Bring in a new, high-powered team to restore confidence in the state and get the private sector up and running again at full throttle. It may sound simple, but under Davis, it hasn't happened. That's unfortunate, because that's where new revenue will come from to balance the books. He also seems to bring with him a refreshing can-do, American optimism — very much welcome after the Davis gloom-and-doom years. Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, is a nationally syndicated columnist.