Conservatives supporting Arnold: Are betraying their principles

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Written By David T. Pyne

Earlier this week, the Governing Board of the California Republican Party issued an unprecedented endorsement in next week’s gubernatorial election for Arnold Schwartzenegger. Previously, they refused to hold a vote at the convention knowing that the state and county committee members would in all likelihood have voted to endorse the only conservative in this race—Senator Tom McClintock.

The lying refrain of California’s Rockefeller Republican Establishment during the past two months has been that while McClintock is more conservative only a liberal multi-millionaire like Arnold could win. They have argued this without citing any polling evidence to support this dubious assertion and sadly a lot of otherwise good conservative GOP voters have bought this liberal lie and have expressed their intention to vote for Schwartzenegger rather than their first choice–conservative champion Tom McClintock. This deceptive refrain that only the more liberal candidate in the Republican primary has been used by the liberal Republican Establishment to defeat viable, electable conservatives many times during the past half century. It was first used to defeat conservative champion Senator Robert A.Taft in order that longtime liberal Democrat, Dwight D. Eisenhower might be foisted upon the 1952 GOP National Convention attendees as their nominee. In this election, the liberal GOP elitists have worked to undermine and defeat this race’s conservative and Reaganite dream candidate in order to ensure that Schwartzenegger, their anointed liberal darling RINO candidate gets elected instead. Supporting an actual conservative, let alone a principled conservative like McClintock for public office would be anathema for the liberal GOP elitists. Most of them would rather see a liberal Democrat get elected than a conservative Republican.

In point of fact, Senator Tom McClintock has beaten Bustamante head to head in every poll that has been repeated in the national media during the entire race. According to the latest CNN-USA Today-Gallop and Los Angeles Times polls released earlier this week, would defeat Bustamante in a landslide by a margin of nineteen points (the same margin that Arnold would win by) were Schwartzenegger to drop out or be forced out of the race stemming from revelations about his past unsavory behavior, which the Democrats will likely use to maximum advantage in the closing days of the election.

This latest poll shows Arnold leading the pack with 40% and Bustamante with 25% and McClintock with 18% amounting to an over two to one vote for the GOP. In this Democrat backlash recall climate, virtually any articulate Republican candidate no matter how conservative could defeat the lackluster and potentially racist Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and be elected Governor of California. Accordingly, Republicans will be wasting a historic opportunity to effect long-needed conservative change in California if they waste their vote and betray their principles by voting for someone who agrees with liberal Democrats on the issues far more frequently than he agrees with conservatives. Arnold is pro-gay civic union, pro-gay adoption, believes in abortion on demand and has never met a gun control law that he hasn’t liked, no matter how draconian. He has refused to take a “no tax increase pledge” as McClintock has done and has surrounded himself with prominent liberal Democrats like Warren Buffet and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He has even expressed support for amnestying illegal immigrants.

The RINO parade behind RINO actor Arnold Schwartzenegger has gotten so bad that Senator McClintock and those who support him and the conservative principles that he stands for have been called traitors to the party and ironically even RINOs themselves for daring to support a candidate that supports the very conservative principles that the GOP claims to stand for. Conservative Republicans in California are being lambasted by the Party’s leftwing for refusing to willfully betray and abandon their principles by voting for a social liberal and a fiscal moderate like Arnold Schwartzenegger. It appears that there is no longer a place for conservatives in the California Republican Party’s new big-tent while supporters of homosexual civic unions, abortion on demand, amnesties for illegal immigrants, draconian gun control measures and tax and spend government liberalism are now welcome. Perhaps in the not so distant future, California conservatives will have to leave en masse and form a new party where they will be welcomed as valued members.

Radio and TV talk-show host and neoconservative, Sean Hannity, has been the biggest cheerleader of liberal Arnold Schwartzenegger for Governor on the conservative side and has spent the last couple of weeks urging conservatives to walk off the proverbial cliff by placing their blind trust in Schwartzenegger who has refused to take a stand on many issues in order that they might continue to pander to voters across the political spectrum. A few conservative congressman from California have joined the Arnold for Governor bandwagon for reasons of political expediency. Meanwhile, bona-fide conservatives like Rush Limbaugh have voiced admiration and support for McClintock and rightly criticized Schwartzenegger for his RINO credentials and past statements that he was “ashamed to be a Republican.”

Every conservative who has heeded the liberal Republican Establishment’s call to fall into line between liberal Arnold Schwartzenegger has done so in complete betrayal of the party’s conservative principles, which they claim to espouse. Voting for a candidate as liberal on the issues as Arnold who agrees with liberal Democrats on virtually all issues of importance to conservatives when there is an eminently electable (as measured by all the poll data) conservative alternative in the race like Senator Tom McClintock is completely unfathomable. As former California GOP Senate nominee, Bruce Herschenson, said upon his recent endorsement of McClintock, if every conservative who said they agree more with McClintock, but are voting for Arnold would vote for McClintock, he would be handily elected California’s next Governor next week.

A McClintock victory would transform and energize the California Republican Party and the conservative base much like the GOP’s landslide victory in 1994 transformed the US Congress for a decade or more to come. In addition, it would likely result in significant GOP gains in the California legislature and a GOP victory in the US Senate race next year against incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer. Senator McClintock has demonstrated a complete command of the issues unlike political neophyte Arnold Schwartzenegger and were his policy solutions to be implemented, the state’s economy would likely experience a relatively quick recovery.

Now, with the liberal, scandal-laden Arnold as the likely victor, a candidate who is likely to pursue most of the Davis-Bustamante liberal social and tax and spend fiscal agenda, the California Republican Party is setting themselves up for significant defeats in these races. This is because millions of California’s citizens will likely become disenchanted with Arnold’s failure to initiate significant reforms or policy changes and begin blaming him for the state’s problems and the Republican Party instead of the Democrats. A Governor Schwartzenegger would likely become the subject of a Democrat recall petition one which would have a greater chance of success than one against the more principled and conservative fix-it man, Tom McClintock. A Schwartzenegger victory means that President George W. Bush would likely face a much greater uphill battle to pick-up California’s 55 electoral votes in 2004 than he would have with a wounded Governor Davis or a conservative reformist Governor like McClintock. Accordingly, such a victory would likely jeopardize the President’s re-election efforts at a time when he is trailing the leading Democratic presidential candidates in the polls and victory is far from assured. On the other hand were McClintock elected Governor next week, he would likely emerge as a potential presidential or vice-presidential candidate come 2008 in a bid to help carry California for whoever ends up being the Republican nominee.

Lou Sheldon, Chairman of Californians for Moral Government and the Traditional Values Coalition, has warned that a Schwartzenegger victory would likely transform the once conservative California Republican Party into a liberal, me-too clone of the Democrat Party. Such a liberal-dominated and controlled California GOP would likely support socially liberal candidates over pro-life conservatives in Republican nomination contests across the state and accordingly prevent conservatives from being able to have a meaningful choice and elect one of their own in elections down the ballot. Sheldon and other bona-fide conservatives nationwide who have been nearly unanimous in endorsing the only conservative in the race, Tom McClintock, for Governor and supporting him with time, money and volunteers. Unfortunately, unless conservatives wake up from their liberal-induced slumber and support Tom McClintock over Arnold Schwartzenegger, then they will likely end up losing on most of the issues of greatest importance to them, not to mention jeopardizing the outcome of future elections at the state and national levels.

 

Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

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