The California ballot initiative Proposition 54 would end the
state’s outrageous collection of racial data. The racial numbers
are used to prop up the quota lobby’s propaganda. No racial data,
no “patterns of discrimination” to allege. Panicking at the thought
of losing this crucial propaganda tool, the quota lobby has
unleashed the attack dogs on the popular initiative. USA
Today reports that 50% of Californians support the measure,
37% oppose it. Yet its chief booster, Ward Connerly, already smells
the scent of death. “Obviously we are about to be outgunned by an
army of politically correct and racially-motivated forces, the
likes of which we have never seen,” Connerly has said.
Connerly’s despair is understandable. He faces a wall of elite
resistance, stretching from Gray Davis to Cruz Bustamante to Arnold
Schwarzenegger. That’s right, Connerly can’t even count on the
support of the candidate we’re told is so reliably Republican.
Opposing Proposition 54 is a “no-brainer,” says Schwarzenegger. It
is “disastrous,” he told a Spanish-language station. What he has
learned from his state-run babysitting program and other work in
education, he says, is that the state must collect racial data in
order to track the progress of minorities. This is one more snap
shot of Schwarzenegger’s statism. Take his quotes and cover up the
attribution, and one would guess Cruz Bustamante was speaking.
The Sacramento Bee reports that Schwarzenegger is “all
for health insurance for the unemployed, ‘but this is probably the
wrong time.’” So Hillary Care is a good idea at another time? Look
at Schwarzenegger’s remarks carefully and they almost all imply
that big government is fine provided that state revenues are
swelling. He still accepts that “everything” must be “provided” to
the people. This is not the mind of a fiscal conservative but of a
Democrat in slow motion.
“I’m not afraid of Democrats — I married one,” says
Schwarzenegger. But he is leery of Republicans, at least believing
ones. His comments about Proposition 54 suggest that he has learned
nothing from Richard Riordan’s campaign gaffes. Riordan thought for
some reason that he could get votes from Republicans while
simultaneously calling them ideological lowlifes. Schwarzenegger is
repeating the pattern. The courting hasn’t even begun and he has
already given signs that he considers conservatives useless.
Imagine what he will say about them if he is safely ensconced in
Sacramento.
Schwarzenegger has let it be known that he is a stand-in for
Riordan, an aging pol he deemed too confused and bumbling to run.
Riordan was so undisciplined that during the Republican primary
last year he allowed himself a pot shot at California GOP icon
George Deukmejian. “George has a bad memory,” he said. “He only
remembers his grudges.” And then there were the endless gibes at
“extremists” in the party. Riordan’s Big Tent covered everyone
except conservatives.
Schwarzenegger is also big on GOP tolerance, as long as it
doesn’t mean tolerating conservatives. They embarrass him. “I was
ashamed to call myself a Republican during that period,” he said of
the Republican-led Clinton impeachment. Now he is ashamed of the
Republican supporters of Proposition 54. “Right-wing crazies,”
National Review Online quotes him as saying.
When will Republicans feel ashamed of Schwarzenegger? To win
with a celebrity arriviste who would rather shred the
Republican standard than carry it is shameful, especially when as
solid and capable a Republican as Tom McClintock stands before
them.
Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee writes that the
recent Field Poll “found that without McClintock in the race,
Schwarzenegger takes a slight lead among replacement candidates, 33
percent support compared with 31 percent for Bustamante.” What’s
not asked is what if Schwarzenegger exited? He could leave the race
as casually as he entered it.
A McClintock surge is not out of the question. Weintraub reports
that “McClintock is the only major candidate to improve his image
rating considerably, going from 28/32 to 38/37,” and “McClintock
also scores best on a question asking voters what kind of job they
think each of the candidates would do as governor. He gets a 35/19
excellent to poor ratio, while Cruz is at 36/31 and Arnold at
40/35.”
It is Schwarzenegger who threatens to spoil the party’s chances
for a meaningful victory, which is already evident in his spoiling
of Proposition 54.
