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To those who dismiss the idea of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as being a liberal, there are plenty of quotes gathered from his interviews over the years:
| QUOTE | Schwarzenegger's positions have largely been gleaned from scores of interviews spanning two decades.
"I'm for choice," he said when asked about abortion on Fox TV's "The O'Reilly Factor" in May 2001. "The women should have the choice. The women should decide what they want to do with their bodies. I'm all for that."
On guns, he told a Berkeley-based youth radio station last year: "I don't run around every day with a gun in my hand. So I want kids to understand the difference; one is make believe, like we do in the movies. But in reality, I'm for gun control. I'm a peace-loving guy."
And on gay rights, he told Cosmopolitan magazine, "I have no sexual standards in my head that say 'this is good' or 'this is bad.' Homosexual -- that only means to me that he enjoys sex with a man and I enjoy sex with a woman. It's all legitimate to me."
Still, as a man who keeps a bust of Ronald Reagan in his office, and who leads the field in the polls and the free world in media attention, Schwarzenegger remains an option even to many who disagree with him.
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Full storySo, perhaps not surprisingly, the reception Arnold gets from conservative groups tends to be -- shall we say -- mixed. For example, Larry Kudlow, for example, tries to embrace him, writing in the National Review that: | QUOTE | If you're a conservative, what's not to like? Sure, Schwarzenegger may describe himself as liberal on social issues, but he is against late-stage partial-birth abortion, favors parental notification for minors seeking abortions, and has no appetite for massive social-service spending on illegal immigrants.
Conservatives should also enjoy Schwarzenegger's repeated attacks on liberal interest groups. He made it clear that government employee unions, teachers unions, trial lawyers, and the casino Indian tribes conspired to support a highly liberal government in Sacramento. He stated that these well-funded special interests rode roughshod over the weak Gray Davis, a man who started out centrist, but moved way left by tripling the car tax, allowing illegal immigrants to gain drivers licenses, mandating expanded health care and workman's-compensation rules that cripple business, and increasing the number of state government employees and their salaries by a huge 20 percent.
Gov.-elect Schwarzenegger has already stressed that "I campaigned that I will not raise taxes, and I say this again: I will not raise taxes." Rather, he intends to rescind the onerous car tax, and overturn lucrative pay raises for state-government employees as well as burdensome health care mandates.
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Full storyOn the other hand, other conservative groups -- especially the social conservatives, which form a huge part of the GOP's base -- are extremely upset with him: | QUOTE | The Real Reason Why Social Conservatives Fear Arnold
Before his recent election to Governor of California, social conservatives throughout the country blasted Arnold Schwarzenegger. Conservative Christian Reverend Lou Sheldon’s criticized him as a “highly promiscuous hedonist,” playing him up like he was almost Satan incarnate. The American Spectator On-line, (American Prowler), brutally attacked Arnold almost every single day prior to the election. Editor George Neuyamar was merciless for weeks in savaging Arnold cause of his tolerance on social issues. Other conservative publications like the California Policy Review body-slammed Arnold with regular hit pieces painting him as a “liberal” Republican. Paleo-conservative Brent Bozell appeared on Fox News criticizing the Schwarzenegger campaign. Alan Keyes, hero of the religious right, delivered the coup de grace a week before the election with a major nationwide column attacking Arnold’s social stances. The Chairman for California Republican Assembly was quoted in southern California papers a couple days before the election, with a cleverly worded message urging social conservatives to consider voting for Gray Davis just to ensure that Arnold would not win.
Why would social conservatives be so opposed to a candidacy of a fellow Republican? Simply put, they were scared to death that if Arnold won his new brand of “fiscally conservative/socially tolerant” Republicanism would catch on and spread like wildfire outside of California across the nation.
You see Arnold is far more dangerous to their cause than real liberal Republicans like Senator Arlen Specter, Sen. Olympia Snowe, or New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Arnold Swarzenegger is a libertarian Republican, short and sweet. And the emergence of a true blue libertarian Republican to the forefront of the GOP spells disaster for social conservatives. Libertarianism, combining strong fiscal conservativism with social tolerance is far more appealing to the mass of American voters than their overtly religious out of date social conservatism.
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Full storyWhat are Californians, and Americans for that matter, to make of this? Time will tell.
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I see America differently.
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The Schwarzenegger Factor, How liberal a Republican is Arnold?
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