Schwarzenegger- Carona: GOP’s Dream Ticket?

As Orange County Republicans gathered on election night in the festooned ballroom of an Irvine hotel, arguably the most popular face of the local GOP wasn’t there.

Sheriff Mike Carona opted to spend the evening at a Boyle Heights gym, where he joined actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in celebrating the passage of Proposition 49, a statewide funding plan for after-school programs.

It could prove to be a prescient pairing. As Republicans contemplate the prospect of Schwarzenegger seeking the governorship of California in 2006, Carona’s name is increasingly being invoked as the leading GOP candidate for lieutenant governor.

Such a ticket would match the movie action hero with the lawman that CNN’s Larry King crowned a “genuine American hero” for his handling of the Samantha Runnion kidnap-murder case last summer.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see [Carona] on the statewide ballot in four years,” said Rob Stutsman, spokesman for the state party. “He has the type of persona that the Republican Party needs to help communicate with modern voters, particularly women. He’s the antithesis of the angry white male that dogged the party’s image in the 1990s.”

Schwarzenegger, who hasn’t declared whether he will run, worked with Carona during the Proposition 49 campaign and the two appeared together in TV ads supporting the measure.

Orange County has failed to produce a winning statewide candidate for nearly three decades, and some experts say Carona faces an uphill battle. While he might run as a team with Schwarzenegger, California elects its governor and lieutenant governor separately.

Carona is mum about plans for higher office, but supporters are quick to offer why he would be a perfect candidate: He is a conservative who works well with Democrats; he is a law-and-order man who believes rehabilitation works better than jail for criminal addicts; and he drew praise from as high as President Bush on the Runnion case.

Carona, who was attending a conference Thursday and couldn’t be reached for comment, was little-known outside Orange County until he took to the national airwaves for a tense week this summer after the 5-year-old Stanton girl was kidnapped. He won high marks for his direct appeals to the public and was a frequent guest on network news shows.

That exposure translated into clout in Tuesday’s election.

No other local Republican this year delivered as much endorsement wattage, said Allan Hoffenblum, who produces one of the state’s most popular GOP slate cards.

Still, most of those talking are quick to offer that four years is a long way away. And even some of the first boosters for Schwarzenegger’s prospects aren’t endorsing anyone outright yet.

“Mike’s got a lot of appeal, [and] Arnold’s got a lot of appeal too,” said Larry Higby, head of Republicans for a New Majority, an Orange County group trying to broaden the party’s appeal in California.

“[Carona] believes in broadening the party, in inclusiveness and in reaching out to the community,” said Higby, president of Apria Health Care in Costa Mesa. “Without efforts like that, it’s going to be difficult for any Republican to be elected.”

Longtime Democratic activist Wylie Aitken said Carona would have the same problem that anyone running from Orange County has faced when seeking a statewide office: The image as a conservative bastion.

While that might help in the primary, local nominees have been repeatedly passed over by voters in general elections.

“There’s an image of Orange County that tends to be an anchor on both Democrats and Republicans,” Aitken said. “Neither gets a boost from the famous 10% [of undeclared voters] that decides elections. Certainly Mike has the ability to transcend that.”