Another Arnold Makeover

27 July 2006 |permalink | email article

It’s fascinating to watch as the governor continues to reinvent himself as a moderate more than 100 days before the November election.

This week Schwarzenegger played the Latino card: trade with Mexico, offering a mea culpa for supporting an anti-illegal immigrant state proposition 12 years ago, and another in renouncing his past praise for the Minutemen, the rabid civilian border brigade obsessed with stopping illegal border crossings.

He abruptly postponed his August trade mission to Mexico until after the Nov. 7, vaguely citing uncertainties about the outcome of the controversial presidential election.

That he’s invited California’s two most powerful Democrats and Latinos, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez – both fervent allies - to join him on the mission is far more significant.

It suggests that a) Schwarzenegger is very confident about his re-election in a heavily Democratic state, and b) Villaraigosa, an obvious candidate for the open seat in 2010, may only reluctantly, if at all, endorse Democrat Phil Angelides, who trails the governor by 8 points in a new Field Poll. (A new Public Policy Institute of California survey released this morning shows Schwarzenegger moving to a 13-point lead.)

A more stunning example of how Schwarzenegger is repositioning himself as a Republicrat was his denunciation of a 1994 vote for Proposition 187 which was intended to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining public services, including health care and education. Passed overwhelmingly, it was overturned by the courts.

About Proposition 187, he told La Opinion, the Spanish language daily, “I think, looking back, it was the wrong decision.” Republican conservatives are furious with his apologies. But his imported Bush-Cheney team wants to win and is not seriously concerned about the wing nuts.

Schwarzenegger’s flip-flops on Proposition 187 and the Minutemen is the most recent indication he’s focused on issues which attract moderate swing voters – not illegal immigration and taxes which are the major Republican issues. Sure, he may lose some of the 85 percent of the GOP faithful who currently back him. But the new poll indicates that less than a third of Democrats considered likely voters favor Angelides.

All this tactical repositioning on Latino issues is interesting. While he leads Angiledes by 20 points among white voters in the Field Poll, the governor trails by more than 2 to 1 among Latinos. Having Villaraigosa as a staunch ally in the Los Angeles area, where Angelides is ahead by 10 points, is pivotal to Schwarzenegger’s chances of icing a victory.

The moderate and swing vote, key to Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall win, is the key to this election. The most recent poll found the governor ahead among independents by one point, with 1 in 5 still undecided.

But the “intensity” of voter preferences for a candidate strongly favors the incumbent. Angelides faces a daunting challenge, made worse by the PPIC poll, in unmasking Schwarzenegger as a political fraud without core beliefs.

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