Tag Archives: Duf Sundheim

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The CRP’s dreams of a grand grassroots movement, dashed by a bodybuilder

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The last time I heard Duf Sundheim, former CRP chair, speak, he talked about their metrics and their dreams of grassroots involvement.  Indeed, when I signed up for their email list (to get Schwarzenegger’s scheduling info), I got several phone calls and emails, all wanting me to get involved.  Apparently, all that work, and all that money ($25million?) wasn’t all that effective after all.  From an unnamed “California Republican” of Arnold’s grass roots network:

But one California Republican said there is little to be gained by Romney seeking the Schwarzenegger endorsement. “They don’t see him as critical,” the adviser said. “There’s no real benefit to the Schwarzenegger endorsement in terms of grass roots. There’s no political organization that you inherit.” (CW 3/19/07)

Indeed, nobody was really excited about Arnold to say, go stand in a park for a couple of hours with 10,000 of your closest friends pushing you.  Nobody really wanted to go door to door for him.  For the Republicans, he was better than Phil Angelides.  For the Democrats who voted for him, he was, well, not a politician.  SOrry, but the people who vote for somebody because they aren’t a politician, don’t tend to be political activists.  So, Arnold spends $100 million or so, and has precious little to show for it on the ground. So all those big corporations that poured money into Team Arnold…congratulations and be happy with that bumper sticker and Arnold coffee mug. Once 2010 hits, you’ll have to start from scratch.

Incidentally, that quote is from a Capitol Weekly article about Mitt “Empty Suit” Romney not caring enough about Arnold’s endorsement to find time to talk to him.  Or vice versa…

Blog Roundup

Odds and Ends 11/14

Originally I had planned on only doing this until the election, but I’ve found it quite satisfying to just write a short pithy comment on each story and move on to the next.  Also, I felt that I had been ignoring so many issues out there.  These will probably be shorter now, but I’ll try to get these out daily during the week.  No guarantees though. 🙂

So, teasers: Waxman attacks?, Jerry goes to DC, the failure of the metrics, and the LA Times saga continues.  Plus more!!

  • Will Henry Waxman challenge President Bush?  You know as well as I that there is no love lost between these two.  Waxman wants to investigate some of the policies of the Bush administration, and that is his job as Chair of the House Gov. Reform Cmte.  There are issues of war profiteering that have never been answered, and those should be investigated.  But the “storm of subpoenas” that the conservatives have been talking about? Don’t expect it…unless of course Bush has a reason to stonewall the sunshine.  When Waxman had subpoena power, he issued NO subpoenas.  The same can not be said of the Republicans in the Clinton era.
  • Mr. McNerney goes to Washington.  No word on his new committee assignments, but expect him to push hard for a spot on the Energy Committee, where he can put his background in wind energy to use.  As he campaigned on making the 11th a district focused on renewables, expect him to push for more resources on biofuels, wind, solar, etc.
  • A friend of mine forwarded me this from the Capitol Morning Report, a subscription only service.  It is an op-ed of sorts by strategist Tony Quinn, one of the editors of the California Target Book, about the failure of the GOP GOTV machine that Duf Sundheim (CRP Chair) had been pushing so hard.  The GOP GOTV in California completely failed to extend Arnold’s coat tails.  In a year when Dems had a weak top of the ticket, when you would expect some level of push back from the GOP, they got nothing.  In California, the Rove strategy of motivating the base just won’t work.  Of course, that’s especially true when you have a president who is hated, even by his base.  It all added up to a very poor night for everybody except Arnold. And Poizner I suppose, but I think anybody not named Cruz could have won that race.  Here’s a portion of the article:

    The much-touted Schwarzenegger/Republican get-out-the-vote effort in this election turned out to be a big flop. It’s not the first time the GOP effort to turn out its own voters has failed; but this year the party convinced itself that it would make a difference.
         The Schwarzenegger campaign spent millions on phone banks and mailers, the campaign flooded Republican mailboxes with slick brochures and pestered voters with robo calls at dinner time, something Republicans call micro-targeting. (I received three calls from “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger” telling me to vote while hosting an early election night party at my home and I had voted weeks ago.)
         They said this would bring out Republican voters, but it did not. Why? There are several reasons. Certainly a factor was Republican disgust with Bush and Iraq that kept many of their voters home. A large number of safe Republicans saw their vote percentage fall from 2004 levels. For instance, Sacramento GOP Rep Dan Lungren received only 59 percent this year; two years ago, he received 62 percent. That three percent drop was stay-at-home-Republicans. All the robo calls in the world could not get these voters to the polls.
         But that’s not the whole story. Republican registration is just 34 percent of statewide voters, an historic low. Republican strategists seem to believe they can overcome their registration deficit by pushing a higher turnout among their loyal voters, thus the robo calls and slick mailers aimed at GOP voters.
         But they fail to recognize that an appeal to the GOP base alone is not sufficient to win any longer in California. There are simply not enough like-minded voters outside the Republican base to forge a victory. Just look at the difference between Schwarzenegger and the rest of the Republican ticket.

  • The LA Times and the Tribune Company, its parent, are the subject of several takeover bids.  David Geffen is rumored to be trying to buy the Times from the Trib, and several bidders are trying to buy the Tribune Company.  As to how this will all turn out? Who knows, but one thing that is clear is that LA and the Times would be better off without the Tribune Company and its conservative ownership involved in the day to day operations of the paper of record on the West Coast.