(cross-posted on BetterCA and DailyKos)

Arnold wants to win re-election and will do just about anything to do so.  Just look at who he hired to run his campaign, the Bush/Cheney team who managed turn a war hero into a flip-flopper and an draft dodger into a tough leader.  The Merc does a great job profiling these imports and their hardball tactics.

Steve Schmidt, campaign manager: [snip]

Schmidt ran Bush’s re-election war room and rapid response team — which provides immediate responses to opponents’ assertions — during the Democratic National Convention, has served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s spokesman, and was a member of Karl Rove’s inner circle.

As the rapid response guy for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, he was responsible for creating sympathy for Alito by pounding home the image of his sobbing wife during tough grilling.

The man is getting paid an amazing $52,000 a month.  In contrast. Cathy Calfo, Angelides campaign manager is earning $15,000.  I guess bullets are expensive.

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist: The man who plotted strategy for Bush’s 2004 re-election, Dowd is close to Rove — the two once taught a class together on campaigning as political opponents, before Dowd joined Rove’s Texas shop in 1998.

Dowd is known for his successful microtargeting strategy and advertising on cable TV.

Alex Castellanos, political advertising: Considered the Republican Party’s ultimate political hit man, Castellanos is best known for producing searing negative ads. His 1990 “White Hands” ad is considered one of the most racially divisive in campaign history. It featured an angry white worker crumpling up a job-rejection notice after losing it “because they had to give it to a minority.”

Castellanos is also the guy responsible for the subliminal “rats” ad in 2000.  The GOP had an ad up attacking Gore’s prescription drug campaign and for 1/30th of a second the word “rats” flashed across the screen.  At the time Castellanos denied that he put it in there.  However, even after it was brought to his attention, he continued to run the ad as is for another two weeks, before finally yanking it.

The governor has tried to stay away from the unpopular president as much as possible.  Instead, he has hired Bush’s brain trust.  These are the guys who worked for one of the most divisive administrations in history.  Their record of lowest common denominator politics is deplorable.

Salon writes:

Over the years Castellanos has produced a trail of caustic ads either pulled off the air, like the Bush spot in Florida, or judged by his own Republican clients to be too misleading or biting for public consumption. Yet today, because of his expertise at the negative, he has been given a central role in the Bush campaign.

Steve Schmit, learned from one of the most successful campaign operatives, Karl Rove.  Rove was not successful because he runs positive campaigns.  Rove’s strategy usually consists “of taking your own weakness and turning it into your opponent’s weakness instead, through relentless misrepresentation of facts.”  Do not be surprised to see this strategy crop up at some point in the race.

Schmidt seems to have adapted a Castellanos strategy: it is true because I say so.  Evidently accoriding to Castellanos, false advertising is “freedom and democracy on display”.

“You know, ultimately all this messy stuff we have in politics, all this conflict, all this chaos — by another name, it’s freedom. And I think that a country that has fought so hard to earn its freedom and keep its freedom shouldn’t give an ounce of it away,” he once said on a 1998 documentary broadcast on PBS. “If you take all the negative aspects out of politics, if you take all the divisiveness out of politics, what you’re left with is, is very bland, unimaginative oatmeal.”

I guess you can twist the flag into just about anything.  Personally, I would much rather have a debate over the issues and a vibrant Democracy, rather than discourage participation with false advertising.

This is the stellar team that Arnold has put together.  This cycle is not going to be pretty.  They will stop at nothing to get Arnold re-elected and that is just the way he wants it.  This is the Bush legacy in all its glory.