...against Arnold. If, in the next ten years, an amendment to the constitution allowing naturalized American citizens to become President, then President Schwarzennegger would be a reality soon afterward.
Many of us on dkos do not want to admit this. However, any Schwarzennegger for President campaign would be an absolutely unstoppable force that would win at least 55% of the two-party vote.
Here are my reasons:
1. Arnold would win California, crippling the Democratic electoral base.
2. Arnold would sweep all of the predominantly white, pro-third party, non-Southern New England states: AK, ME, MT, VT, MN, WI, UT, OR, CO, ND, ID, WA, NE, KS and WY. These states consistently vote for third party candidates far in excess of the other states in the union. Perceived as a tough, moderate, independent, self-made man, he would have little difficultly in these areas. Arnold would attract a significant number of third-party voters.
3. Arnold would crush any opposition when it comes to independent voters. Never underestimate the power of celebrity to attract independent voters. Arnold won an overwhelming majority among independents in the recall election.
4. Unless Democrats nominated a southerner to Arnold's right, Arnold would hold onto the south. While the south is the least independent-leaning region of the nation, Republicans rarely face splinter campaigns in the way Democrats do. Apart from Roosevelt's 1912 campaign, there has never been a serious Republican splinter campaign. It remains unclear whether or not Anderson hurt Carter or Reagan more, it remains unclear who Perot hurt more, and Buchanan managed less than 1% of the national vote. Even if Anderson and Perot did hurt Republicans more than they hurt Democrats, they hurt Democrats a lot more than Democratic splinter campaigns in 1948, 1960, 1968, 1976 and 2000 hurt Republicans. If Arnold were the Republican nominee, the conservative, two-party-minded south would probably play along.
5. Arnold would in fact win the Republican nomination, unless he was competing against a conservative son of a former President who has the same name as that President. Seriously. He crushed McClintock among Republicans in California. He would easily win any primary that allowed independents and/or Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. If he ain't running against Bush, no republican has any chance of coming close to Schwarzennegger in a primary campaign.
6. Whatever excuses we come up with for the California recall--Bustamante sucked at campaigning, Davis was a jackass who deserved what he got, the only debate with Arnold had prefabricated questions and answers, it was a fluke chance in a bad economy that Arnold took advantage of, etc.--Arnold came very close to winning an outright majority in a race with 135 candidates, a serious conservative challenger in a heavily Democratic state with a majority minority population. Any Republican who can do that would win big almost anywhere.
7. Policy wise, Arnold would be able to attract a decent amount of conservative Democrats. He really isn't all that far from Bill Clinton and the DLC in terms of ideology.
8. Americans sure liked voting for a celebrity the last time a bad actor run for President. (Read Simpson's disgusted noise here).
Where would Arnold not win? Well, New York would be the best bet for an Arnold defeat. NY is the second or third most pro-Democratic state in the country (along with MA and RI), and it is in the bottom half for support of independent candidates (MA and RI are both in the top ten in this category). So, at least the Democratic nominee facing Schwarzennegger could count on the Empire state for some electoral votes. However, few other states would even be close. The only positive to a Schwarzennegger campaign would be this year, when he would have a good chance to unseat Bush for the Republican nomination.
Unfortunately, I think this means we should oppose attempts to pass any amendment to allow naturalized citizens to become president for another 15-20 years. By then, Arnold will be too old to run. Its too bad really, because otherwise I think such an amendment would be a good idea.