ABC's Sunlen Miller Reports: Barack Obama has often said he'd consider putting Repbulicans in his cabinet and even bandied about names like Sens. Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel. He's a added a new name to the list of possible Republicans cabinet members - Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: "What (he’s) doing on climate change in California is very important and significant. There are things I don't agree with him on, but he's taken leadership on a very difficult issue and we haven't seen that kind of leadership in Washington," Obama said of the California governor.
What a poor political impulse. For CA activists, it's immediately obvious that the most charitable thing you can say about Arnold is he doesn't pee on the carpet when the voters muzzle him.
Discuss the special effects on the jump...
As I said when I put Gropinator.net on hiatus,
[...] things are a lot better for California government now than when Enron's new governor was charging ahead with a budget cap that would have decimated education at all levels. It's a lot better now that newborn retarded children can continue to receive services rather than being locked out of the Lanterman centers.
Arnold has been hog-tied. By the voters, by our oft-immature Dem legislature, by his own hubris. He's the perfect icon of CA politics, a bronzed actor, all image, having little relationship with the grit of real things.
He's a Santa Monica Blvd. version of Monty Python's Black Knight.
The shorter version of Gov. Arnold is that he's all about Arnold, and if Arnold is a punitive conservative (he is), he only moderates his behavior when the lights and cameras require it.
And Arnold lies. A lot. About serious matters. His entire campaign during the Recall was based on an ad saying he would not touch education. But he immediately did. When elected, he and (former Jeb Bush) budget director, Donna Arduin, immediately thrust forward a breathtaking budget cap to be pegged to the economic low point. He tried to ramrod through policies so audacious that they would nearly embarrass even the Club for Growth. The emblem of this moral absurdity, is that Schwarzenegger, the official goodwill ambassador for the Special Olympics, proposed to not only gut MediCal and In Home Support Services for newborn retarded Children (and others with disabilities), he proposed to cap enrollment at the Lanterman Regional Centers that provide services to those with developmental disabilities. This literally meant that no new retarded children would rise to the top of the list until an equal number of retarded adults died (or others with similar life-long developmental disabilities). It is hardly the case that this was an uninformed decision, his mother in law runs the Special Olympics.
He lost.
But even though public opinion and the children in the CA legislature beat back Arnold on the cap, Arnold still was able to cut seats at UC. Not even Ronald Reagan, who ran attacking dirty fucking hippies, was able to do that (RR instead instituted tuition, and Arnold hiked that, too).
Because, he is a Republican. Remember this jewel from the 04 national convention?
"But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes, and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air.
"I said to my friend, 'What party is he?' My friend said, 'He's a Republican.' I said, 'Then I am a Republican."
(Bold, mine). Seriously, how many idiots do you know whose transformative political inspiration was Richard Nixon?
Since that speech, Arnold took a whack at ramrodding his Club for Growth-style bullshit through at the ballot box, and was crushed by the voters.
It was not until this complete repudiation of his core vales that he became house trained, or to use another analogy, he assumed a new role.
Seriously, Barack, clarify your remarks.