Liberals in the California media always counsel the Republican
Party to run liberal Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do
Republicans think journalists offer this avuncular advice because
they have the GOP’s best interests at heart? Let’s take a wild
guess here and say that journalists don’t stay up late at night
fretting over the welfare of the Republican Party. Why then do they
promote the Riordans and the Schwarzeneggers? Because they want the
Republican Party to adopt the liberalism of their party.
Me-too Republicanism is music to the liberal media’s ears. It
means liberals get to exercise ideological control over both
parties and shunt out of the mainstream debate all those
“reactionary” Republicans who foil their agenda.
Democrats might well vote for Schwarzenegger. Why not? He agrees
with them on the most fundamental philosophical issues. Democrats
support it’s-for-the-children-and-the-elderly statism; so does he.
They want gun control; so does he. They support a constitutional
right to abortion; so does he. They may figure, Why not vote for a
Republican who will do our work for us? In liberalizing the
Republican Party, liberals have two parties to do their bidding.
What they do from without — pressuring Republicans to compromise
their principles — Schwarzenegger can do from within.
Republicans ravenous for pyrrhic victories are playing dumb
about Schwarzenegger’s obvious liberalism, but liberals are not.
They know he is a Hollywood liberal who won’t give them much
trouble about their statism and political correctness. I have heard
Davis-hating Democrats extol Schwarzenegger. They know that he is a
Kennedy Republican, that is, a nominal Republican who will advance
the views and values of Kennedy liberals under the false flag of
Republicanism. “We want to make sure the mothers have affordable
day care. We want to make sure the older folks have their care that
they need. That everything has to be provided for the people,” says
Schwarzenegger. Was Schwarzenegger doing an impersonation of Ted
Kennedy?
The Kennedy playboy philosophy of Schwarzenegger also puts Dems
at ease. “I have no sexual standards in my head that say ‘this is
good’ or ‘this is bad,’” he has said to Cosmopolitan
magazine. “‘Homosexual’ — that only means to me that he enjoys sex
with a man and I enjoy sex with a woman. It’s all legitimate to
me.” Has a Democrat every expressed the it’s-all-good moral
relativism of his party more ably than that?
Schwarzenegger is the sort of “children’s activist” JFK could
admire: Schwarzenegger can go from an appearance on the Howard
Stern show to an elementary school classroom for a little chat with
the children about “responsibility.” One can only marvel at the
cynicism of it all. An actor known principally for bringing R-rated
violence to children is treated by the media as one of the leading
children activists in the country. As a member of the Kennedy
family, Schwarzenegger would know from in-law Teddy that as long as
a pol mouths PC pieties about children and women he can get away
with just about anything. Who cares if he has pawed women? He holds
the Gloria Steinem position on abortion! “I’m for choice. The women
should have the choice. The women should decide what they want to
do with their bodies. I’m all for that,” he says. Teddy couldn’t
have said it better.
Schwarzenegger’s strategists are busy teaching him how to play a
Republican on television, and we can expect him to throw a few
bones to conservatives so they will politely avert their gaze from
his Kennedy liberalism. But he will remain a de facto Democrat for
anybody with eyes to see and ears to hear. Republicans who have
lost their sight in the glare of his celebrity will call his
candidacy “Big Tent” Republicanism. It is more like Circus Tent
Republicanism.
Washington Post columnist David Broder — observing
last year that Democrats like San Francisco ultraliberal mayor
Willie Brown supported Schwarzenegger’s state-babysitting
proposition, Prop 49 — wondered aloud: “Are [Democrats] letting
themselves be used to create a new Ronald Reagan for the embattled
California Republican party?” Don’t worry, Mr. Broder.
Schwarzenegger is no Reagan, and the only party that’s being used
is the Republican one.
Reagan registered with the Republican Party to stop liberals,
not elect them. Schwarzenegger’s campaign is not the return of
Reagan’s California party, but definitive proof of its
collapse.
A party that abandons its agenda “to win” will have no agenda to
promote once it does.
