For Governors in G.O.P. Slots, a Liberal Turn
September 20, 2006
For Governors in G.O.P. Slots, a Liberal Turn
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Nytimes
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19 — Here are the things that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be bragging about on the campaign trail: an initiative to lower greenhouse gases with the onus on big companies, a $1 increase in the state’s minimum wage and a program to open up access to prescription drugs.
Mr. Schwarzenegger, who six months ago fashioned himself a Republican reformer bent on hobbling entrenched Democratic institutions, is not just tolerating positions generally associated with liberal candidates. Rather, he is using them as the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, marking the first time in a generation that a Republican governor here has clung to the left during a re-election fight.
The strategy is not unique to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s campaign. Across the nation’s 36 races for governor, Republican candidates in states heavy with moderate or Democratic voters are playing up their liberal positions on issues including stem cell research, abortion and the environment, while remaining true to their party’s platform on taxes and streamlining government.
In Massachusetts, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who is seeking to fill the seat that will be vacated by Gov. Mitt Romney, has openly split with Mr. Romney on abortion rights and stem cell research; her views are shared by the Republican candidate for governor in Illinois, Judy Baar Topinka, who also supports civil unions for same-sex couples.
In Maryland, the Republican incumbent, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., is pushing for increasing state aid for programs for the disabled and imposing tighter restrictions on coal-fired plants; the Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, opposes the death penalty. In Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell also parts ways with the Republican Party on civil unions and financing for stem cell research.
Governing Republican and campaigning Democratic is not a new technique; George E. Pataki, the New York governor, has made a career winning elections as a Republican in a mostly Democratic state. But political experts say that the strategy is particularly pervasive this year, as Republicans seek to distance themselves from an unpopular president and to respond to what is widely recognized as polarization fatigue among many voters.
“The conservative side of Republican party has been so dominant in recent years that we haven’t seen a lot of this phenomenon at work until this year,” said Bruce E. Cain, the director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Now, Mr. Cain said, the easiest way for Republicans to “stay competitive is to take deviations from the standard G.O.P. lines.”
In many ways, the strategy reflects the dynamics of local contests, in which voters are willing to overlook the party affiliation of a candidate if they believe he stands with them on one or two important issues, or pushes through policies that are inherently nonpartisan and that will improve their daily lives.
“The ideology that binds Republican governors is getting things done for their constituents,” said Philip A. Musser, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association. “From the broadest perspective, voters in these races go into the booth caring less if governor is pro life or pro choice and more about whether he is going to reduce their property taxes or make their life easier at the D.M.V.”
Unlike other campaign seasons, when a popular president has been an asset to local politicians, many candidates this year are trying to distance themselves from President Bush, either by staking out ground in contrast to him or, as is the case with Mr. Schwarzenegger, treating the president like a communicable disease.
Democratic candidates across the country have responded by constantly reminding voters of their opponents’ conservative leanings, wherever they exist, and trying to tie them as much as possible to the White House.
In recent months, Mr. Schwarzenegger has gone out of his way to point out where he differs with the president — stem cell research and the role of large companies in creating heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide — and to openly criticize the White House order to police the Mexican border with National Guard troops.
When Mr. Bush visited California last spring, the governor made sure they were scarcely seen together.
On the legislative front, after a humiliating defeat last year of his ballot initiatives designed to take power from nurses and teachers, Mr. Schwarzenegger leapt in the opposite direction this summer.
With the Legislature, he signed off on laws imposing the country’s most stringent controls on carbon-dioxide emissions, raising the minimum wage $1 — after vetoing a similar measure twice before — and helping low-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay for prescriptions.
His campaign tour bus is painted green, along with the vaguely preservationist phrase “Protecting the California Dream,” as his slogan.
His campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, suggested that this was business as usual for Mr. Schwarzenegger, who, he said, “doesn’t rule out ideas just because they came from someone from another party.’’
“In every poll across the country what voters say they yearn for is politicians in both parties to stop fighting,’’ Mr. Schmidt said, “The one person in the country who is doing that is Governor Schwarzenegger.”
The Democrat who wants to unseat the governor, Phil Angelides, has spent the better part of the last few months trying to remind voters that Mr. Schwarzenegger is a Republican through and through, who supported the war in Iraq, the president who ordered it and many right-of-center policies.
“Two months of pretending to be a Democrat doesn’t make him a Democrat,” said Amanda Crumley, the communications director for the Angelides campaign, with a certain amount of fury in her voice. “Just like he has done for the last three years, if he is re-elected, which he won’t be, he will continue to govern like the Bush Republican that he is.”
While Mr. Schwarzenegger’s behavior may seem like pure survival tactics in the deep woods of one of the nation’s bluest states, other recent Republican governors in California have sought to accentuate their conservative leanings.
Pete Wilson, who was governor for most of the 1990’s, supported a ban barring state services for illegal immigrants, capitalizing on anger over illegal immigration to win re-election, and his predecessor, George Deukmejian, won the ardor of suburban voters by presenting himself as tough as nails on crime.
Each state race has its own quirks and circumstances, but the song remains the same in many of them. In the Republican primary in Illinois, Ms. Baar Topinka, the state treasurer, was criticized by opponents for her support of same-sex unions. She nonetheless prevailed in that race.
In some states, however, it is a matter of survival.
Mr. Ehrlich of Maryland has not had much success with his legislature, and he talks openly about his more liberal positions.
“He is a centrist Republican running in a state with heavy Democratic majority,” said James G. Gimpel, a professor at the University of Maryland. “So the reality of re-election suggests that he has to do that. There aren’t enough Republicans to elect him in this state even if they all turned out.”
For Governors in G.O.P. Slots, a Liberal Turn
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Nytimes
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19 — Here are the things that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be bragging about on the campaign trail: an initiative to lower greenhouse gases with the onus on big companies, a $1 increase in the state’s minimum wage and a program to open up access to prescription drugs.
Mr. Schwarzenegger, who six months ago fashioned himself a Republican reformer bent on hobbling entrenched Democratic institutions, is not just tolerating positions generally associated with liberal candidates. Rather, he is using them as the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, marking the first time in a generation that a Republican governor here has clung to the left during a re-election fight.
The strategy is not unique to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s campaign. Across the nation’s 36 races for governor, Republican candidates in states heavy with moderate or Democratic voters are playing up their liberal positions on issues including stem cell research, abortion and the environment, while remaining true to their party’s platform on taxes and streamlining government.
In Massachusetts, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who is seeking to fill the seat that will be vacated by Gov. Mitt Romney, has openly split with Mr. Romney on abortion rights and stem cell research; her views are shared by the Republican candidate for governor in Illinois, Judy Baar Topinka, who also supports civil unions for same-sex couples.
In Maryland, the Republican incumbent, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., is pushing for increasing state aid for programs for the disabled and imposing tighter restrictions on coal-fired plants; the Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, opposes the death penalty. In Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell also parts ways with the Republican Party on civil unions and financing for stem cell research.
Governing Republican and campaigning Democratic is not a new technique; George E. Pataki, the New York governor, has made a career winning elections as a Republican in a mostly Democratic state. But political experts say that the strategy is particularly pervasive this year, as Republicans seek to distance themselves from an unpopular president and to respond to what is widely recognized as polarization fatigue among many voters.
“The conservative side of Republican party has been so dominant in recent years that we haven’t seen a lot of this phenomenon at work until this year,” said Bruce E. Cain, the director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Now, Mr. Cain said, the easiest way for Republicans to “stay competitive is to take deviations from the standard G.O.P. lines.”
In many ways, the strategy reflects the dynamics of local contests, in which voters are willing to overlook the party affiliation of a candidate if they believe he stands with them on one or two important issues, or pushes through policies that are inherently nonpartisan and that will improve their daily lives.
“The ideology that binds Republican governors is getting things done for their constituents,” said Philip A. Musser, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association. “From the broadest perspective, voters in these races go into the booth caring less if governor is pro life or pro choice and more about whether he is going to reduce their property taxes or make their life easier at the D.M.V.”
Unlike other campaign seasons, when a popular president has been an asset to local politicians, many candidates this year are trying to distance themselves from President Bush, either by staking out ground in contrast to him or, as is the case with Mr. Schwarzenegger, treating the president like a communicable disease.
Democratic candidates across the country have responded by constantly reminding voters of their opponents’ conservative leanings, wherever they exist, and trying to tie them as much as possible to the White House.
In recent months, Mr. Schwarzenegger has gone out of his way to point out where he differs with the president — stem cell research and the role of large companies in creating heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide — and to openly criticize the White House order to police the Mexican border with National Guard troops.
When Mr. Bush visited California last spring, the governor made sure they were scarcely seen together.
On the legislative front, after a humiliating defeat last year of his ballot initiatives designed to take power from nurses and teachers, Mr. Schwarzenegger leapt in the opposite direction this summer.
With the Legislature, he signed off on laws imposing the country’s most stringent controls on carbon-dioxide emissions, raising the minimum wage $1 — after vetoing a similar measure twice before — and helping low-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay for prescriptions.
His campaign tour bus is painted green, along with the vaguely preservationist phrase “Protecting the California Dream,” as his slogan.
His campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, suggested that this was business as usual for Mr. Schwarzenegger, who, he said, “doesn’t rule out ideas just because they came from someone from another party.’’
“In every poll across the country what voters say they yearn for is politicians in both parties to stop fighting,’’ Mr. Schmidt said, “The one person in the country who is doing that is Governor Schwarzenegger.”
The Democrat who wants to unseat the governor, Phil Angelides, has spent the better part of the last few months trying to remind voters that Mr. Schwarzenegger is a Republican through and through, who supported the war in Iraq, the president who ordered it and many right-of-center policies.
“Two months of pretending to be a Democrat doesn’t make him a Democrat,” said Amanda Crumley, the communications director for the Angelides campaign, with a certain amount of fury in her voice. “Just like he has done for the last three years, if he is re-elected, which he won’t be, he will continue to govern like the Bush Republican that he is.”
While Mr. Schwarzenegger’s behavior may seem like pure survival tactics in the deep woods of one of the nation’s bluest states, other recent Republican governors in California have sought to accentuate their conservative leanings.
Pete Wilson, who was governor for most of the 1990’s, supported a ban barring state services for illegal immigrants, capitalizing on anger over illegal immigration to win re-election, and his predecessor, George Deukmejian, won the ardor of suburban voters by presenting himself as tough as nails on crime.
Each state race has its own quirks and circumstances, but the song remains the same in many of them. In the Republican primary in Illinois, Ms. Baar Topinka, the state treasurer, was criticized by opponents for her support of same-sex unions. She nonetheless prevailed in that race.
In some states, however, it is a matter of survival.
Mr. Ehrlich of Maryland has not had much success with his legislature, and he talks openly about his more liberal positions.
“He is a centrist Republican running in a state with heavy Democratic majority,” said James G. Gimpel, a professor at the University of Maryland. “So the reality of re-election suggests that he has to do that. There aren’t enough Republicans to elect him in this state even if they all turned out.”
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