I read the following quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger in my local newspaper today, in the wake of low voter turnout in Phil Angelides' primary victory over Steve Westly.
I think that today was a somewhat sad day for me, because we’re all supposed to go out and vote. I think it just shows that negative campaigning doesn’t work.I guess this means that Arnold won’t be “going negative” against Angelides. No “swift boating” of Angelides by the Schwarzenegger campaign, right? Arnold will be re-elected or ousted based on his own ideas, and the confidence of Californians that they can trust him to do what he says?
Well, not according to this account, which describes his campaign as being patterned after Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and run by former Bush staffers. So I guess that means we should expect a barrage of disparaging attacks on Angelides, and attempts to suppress voting in heavily democratic areas of the state! Nice to know that Arnold is following in the footsteps of another moderate, compassionate conservative!
Yup, and it's already started. Arnold's 1st TV campaign spot is already being shown, and it accuses Angelides of "going backwards" for his proposal to raise taxes (of course, Arnold's spot neglects to note that Angelides has only proposed to raise taxes on people in the present Governor's tax bracket, or that he's targeted the funds for education). "A return to the failed policies of the past", and all that. It has already been noted with some irony that the last California Governor to actually raise taxes was Schwarzenegger's trusted advisor, Pete Wilson...
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