All GOP Eyes on Schwarzenegger

As California Republicans gathered here Saturday for a rare summer convention -- without their governor or their president -- the state’s minority party has been debating: Is there such a thing as a Schwarzenegger Republican?

There is little doubt that the new GOP governor has energized the finances of his party: It is raising money at twice the rate it did for the last election. The party believes it is in a better position than Democrats to make inroads in a handful of Assembly and Senate races.

The convention drew several hundred party faithful for workshops on how to defeat Democrats, attract women and minority voters, and mine the state for other supporters. Amid this, the party is anxiously waiting to see whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger represents something larger than himself at the ballot box, whether he can transform his party.

For some Republicans, there was an answer in the March primary. Rather than slash social programs, the governor persuaded voters and conservative tax-cutters to accept a ballot initiative that called for $15 billion in borrowing. Proposition 57, the bond measure, received 63% of the vote.

“People have been talking about the future effect of Schwarzenegger and what is going to happen in November. It’s already happened,” said Matt Rexroad, a GOP political consultant. “When is it where you see Republicans supporting a ballot measure worth $15 billion in borrowing? That is something I never thought I would see.”

For the most part, Schwarzenegger has been concentrating on his own political and governing agenda, though he has taped automated phone messages for candidates in seven Republican legislative races and helped raise money for GOP lawmakers in close fights with Democrats.

Even though he is the nominal head of the California Republican Party, the governor is not scheduled to attend the convention this weekend at a harbor-view Hyatt. Republican officials said he was preparing a prime-time speech that he will give in three weeks at the Republican National Convention in New York.

Schwarzenegger’s name did come up in speeches and during panel discussions, however. U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones, who is running against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer, spent much of his speech on the governor’s merits, saying the “California dream was dying” under former Gov. Gray Davis, and “Arnold Schwarzenegger has changed all that.

“Arnold needs a strong partner in Washington,” Jones said of himself, calling his campaign a way to “continue the job we started in October.”

Schwarzenegger’s absence from the schedule was noticeable, but some delegates said the party should be grateful for what he has accomplished since October.

Phil Moore, attending the convention from Lompoc, said she chastised someone in the Hyatt elevator for grumbling about the governor.

“I remember when this party wouldn’t let Pete Wilson in the front door,” Moore said, referring to the moderate former GOP governor. “This party is now back on the right track -- where for years it was a bit conservative. He has done so much to put the factions together and give the party a positive attitude.”

These days, the fastest-growing party in California is no party at all: decline-to-state independents. The GOP now represents a little more than 35% of the state’s 15 million registered voters, and Democrats, about 43%.

Republicans have been the minority party in California since 1934, though seven GOP governors have been elected since then. Ranked among the most influential is Ronald Reagan, who helped transform the party on a national scale.

Schwarzenegger has crafted his own agenda -- based mostly on government and political reform -- and he has been consistent in embracing any politician, regardless of party, who cooperated with him.

Schwarzenegger scrupulously avoids some of the social issues -- abortion and gun control among them -- that have trapped Republicans and turned off many liberal voters.

And he has managed to skirt one of the most contentious issues being debated this year around the country -- marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples -- by saying the issue should be left to the courts or the public and that he “doesn’t care” either way.

“I don’t see him out there trying to remake the image of the Republican Party,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a co-editor of the California Target Book, which tracks legislative races. “What I see him concentrate on is government reform, which by itself could change the party, the people who they get to run for office, and the people who vote for them.”

Schwarzenegger’s first state budget, approved last month, came late, partly because Republican lawmakers insisted on concessions from the governor after he made deals with majority Democrats. In the end, tax credits were canceled, social service programs remained intact and abortion services were protected. Although the governor got substantial support from Assembly Republicans for the final budget, only four GOP state senators voted for the package he negotiated.

Tony Quinn, a political analyst who works with Hoffenblum on the Target Book, said Schwarzenegger “has a problem with Republican legislators that he may not even care about, but it’s there. I think some of the senior Republicans didn’t like the fact that he tended to negotiate away everything.”

The Republican Party has struggled for years to reconcile its more conservative elements with the need to accept moderate candidates. Schwarzenegger, a moderate who courted Democrats and Republicans with equal vigor during the recall campaign, was elected without having to pass through the fire of a primary dominated by conservatives.

The Republican Party faithful are still figuring out Schwarzenegger. “There is no preexisting relationship between the two. The relationship is still being crafted,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University, and a former advisor to Wilson.

“Arnold’s financial perspective as a business owner and employer is comfortable to an awful lot of people,” said conventioneer Barry Hartz, an Apple Valley financial consultant. “His social views are not mine, but really, that is not important at this point. I think Arnold has stood in the gap with the Legislature, who apparently still don’t get the fact that it’s not their money.”

But the difference between other Republicans and Schwarzenegger can be striking.

During the final days of negotiations over the state budget last month, legislative Republicans held up talks because they wanted to protect a tax loophole for those who buy yachts costing more than $400,000.

Schwarzenegger, legislative sources said, immediately knew that allowing the yacht tax to be the signature issue for Republicans was bad public relations for a party often associated with the wealthy. The governor distanced himself from the issue even as he tried to forge a compromise behind closed doors.

Political analysts say Schwarzenegger had backed himself into an ideological corner earlier in the year. He had already compromised with Democrats, and Republicans wanted something with which to declare victory in the budget battle. He gave them a scaled-down version of the yacht tax loophole.

Bob Mulholland, a strategist for Democrats, said the Schwarzenegger effect this year translates into “more money for Republicans but not many votes.”

“Schwarzenegger did not go out and make sure a lot of moderate Republicans got nominated,” Mulholland said. “He is stuck with the same old baggage. I think Schwarzenegger is more likely to spend his weekends in Idaho than helping legislative candidates.”

But Duf Sundheim, chairman of the California Republican Party, said the governor “has a certain point of view; he has a certain constituency he needs to respond to.”

Schwarzenegger’s positions “are based on who he is,” not necessarily a hard-line party platform, Sundheim added, characterizing the governor’s place in the GOP as being “accepted in the family.”