ArnoldWatch 2006 - Arnold and the Traditional Values Coalition

It's beyond time to take a hard look at the man who California voters will decide in 12 weeks whether or not he should be allowed to continue to be their governor. This is a guy who's apparently so assured of his re-election that he's planning business trips to India in 2007 as if the governor's race itself is a fait accompli. What's he know about Diebold that we don't know? Kidding. But complacency can be very damaging to an incumbent, and this announcement is that type of move (or a trash-talk maneuver to get an aura of inevitability around him).

It shocked me that Angelides actually got some favorable coverage for his new Clinton/Warner economic plan (outside of my coverage, of course!), and Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee thinks playing on the trust issue could bring dividends:

It's becoming increasingly clear that one of the major themes of Phil Angelides' campaign for governor will be an attack on the credibility of the incumbent, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "He's not the man you thought he would be," would be one way to summarize the premise.

It's a line that could work to some degree with just about everyone, depending on what they expected from the novice politician they elected governor in 2003.

Arnold as a politician has been like the weather in New England; if you don't like him, wait a minute. His 31 Flavors governorship is bound to disappoint everyone should they really look at it closely. Like, for example, conservatives:

With the vote on his reelection just over 12 weeks away, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces a wave of conservative unrest that threatens the steady political recovery he has made this year by widening his appeal beyond his base of Republican supporters.

To keep conservatives in line, Schwarzenegger campaign operatives have quietly launched efforts to rally support among Christian fundamentalists, gun owners and other Republicans who have long been wary of the governor and backed him only begrudgingly.

His stands on illegal immigration, the state's swelling debt, gay rights and other matters continue to rankle many of them, and his high-profile courtship of Democrats and independents risks repelling them further as the campaign intensifies.

Schwarzenegger faces no danger of a broad defection of conservatives to his Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Phil Angelides; polls show they overwhelmingly favor the governor.

But their tense alliance with Schwarzenegger, combined with a foul election climate for Republicans nationwide, could spell a low conservative turnout in the Nov. 7 election. And if what is now a wide Schwarzenegger lead over Angelides narrows after Labor Day, as many analysts expect, low conservative turnout will loom as a key peril for the governor and prime source of hope for Democrats.

There's a little nugget in the middle of this article that I think liberal Californians might want to know about:

Meanwhile, to drum up support for Schwarzenegger among evangelicals, the state party has hired Ben Lopez, a lobbyist for the Rev. Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, a group that seeks to outlaw abortion and roll back gay rights.

The Traditional Values Coalition didn't want surviving members of gay and lesbian partnership to receive survivor benefits after 9/11. The TVC accuses gays and lesbians of "recruiting kids" into homosexuality. A top story on their site claims that gays are on a campaign to undermine the military. TVC worked to keep sodomy laws on the books in California. TVC founder the Rev. Lou Sheldon once said this:

“Americans should understand that their attitudes about homosexuality have been deliberately and deceitfully changed by a masterful propaganda/marketing campaign that rivals that of Adolph Hitler. In fact, many of the strategies used by homosexuals to bring about cultural change in America are taken from Hitler’s writings and propaganda welfare manuals.”

This is the ace in the hole that will keep Arnold's conservative base happy with him. A right-wing hate group, plain and simple.

Somebody should ask Arnold Schwarzenegger if he agrees with his backers at the TVC that gays are using "Hitlerian propaganda warfare" to undermine America.