The Black Commentator - Between The Lines: The "New" Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

California rolled out its new governor last week. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, gimp and all, was inaugurated to his first full term (after serving the balance of his recalled predecessor’s term) and he had a brand new look. No, not the crutches. Schwarzenegger wore his new “centrist” jacket to his two million dollar “all frills” inauguration (versus the $200,000 no frills debut when Arnold was sworn in November of 2003). Gone is “the Govenator” and his threats to terminate the Democrat’s overspending. Now he’s just plain Arnold, spending a' plenty to roll out what he called “the Post-Partisan era” of California government. It was nice to see a conciliatory Schwarzenegger calling for unity in solving the state’s problems—which are more than when he came in office. The superhero-action hero governor who swaggered into office, gimped into his own term with a call for peace and harmony befitting of an Arnold—Arnold from Happy Days. Calling on the Democrats to make nice and work with him kind of makes you wonder, why the change? What happened to the other Arnold? Is this really about a change in politics, or just a change in strategy for the demoralized Republicans? Has Arnold Schwarzenegger really moved to the center, or is he just a frustrated right-winger looking for an angle? Time will tell whether Schwarzenegger is a centrist or just a frustrated ideologue.

The Republicans nationwide went from winning the battles (elections) and losing the war, to losing elections AND losing the war. And I don’t mean that war. I mean the war of ideas that compete for the minds (sentiment and votes) of the public. That’s what I like about the Republicans. They know how to read the tea leaves. When the tide turns against them, (meaning they’re not in control), they go with the tide. When they lose the game, they don’t just change the game—they reinvent the game. They invent terms like “shock and awe,” “tax and spend,” and refine old terms like “cut and run” to serve their political objectives—regardless of what the objective really is. The Republicans were mean-spirited and determined to railroad their ideology on anyone and everyone. Now, Arnold says he wants to create “a third way.”

There was always a third way. There’s the left, the right and the middle. It was called Centrism. Moderate politics has been what the country has sought in the last four presidential elections. Republicans refused to work with (and impeached) the guy that perfected centrist politics, Bill Clinton, who invented the “fake left, go right” politics that attracted the nation’s moderates and independents. When the Democrats held executive power, Republicans stonewalled the legislature. Then George W. Bush ran as a moderate -remember “compassionate conservatism,” another invented Republican term to replicate Clinton’s leftist social policy and conservative fiscal policy? But the Neo-cons and Theo-cons highjacked Bush and pulled him to the right, the far right. When they controlled both executive and legislative power, Democrats were relegated to the back of the bus. Bush never called for bipartisanism in his first term, nor in the first two years of his second term. Now that the Republicans have been run out of Congressional leadership, with a failed war and an all-time budget deficit of eight trillion, with their policies failing and public sentiment lagging, suddenly it’s, “C’mon guys (and gals), can you work with me?” Arnold’s just following the “trend” and now that he can’t have his way, he’s a new man.

The Republicans have gone from controlling the nation to controlling very little. They’ve gone from political bullies to political beggars overnight. Now the game is no longer in their favor. We witnessed it on the national level, and we’re witnessing it in California. Arnold is one of the few survivors of 2006. He is now the Republican’s new messenger, as he has promised to roll out this message—not only in California, but in New Hampshire and Iowa. It’s no coincidence that both President Bush and Governor Schwarzenegger had epiphanies around the same time. Bush’s came after the November elections; Arnold’s actually came a little earlier, when all his ballot initiatives were defeated a year prior.

Then there’s California's five billion dollar budget deficit in which not even he could make a dent. That’s when Arnold moved to the middle. First, hiring Democrat strategists for his reelection campaign. Then, by out-democrating the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Phil Angelides, by signing moreof the Democrat’s legislation last year than any Republican Governor in recent history. Now, in the coup de grace of all coup de graces, Schwarzenegger’s senior adviser is no longer right wing former Governor, Pete Wilson, who was so scary when he ran for President in 1996 that the national Republican Party ran from him. It is now former Assembly Speaker (and former San Francisco Mayor), Willie Brown. Yes, that Willie Brown. The same one that Republicans called “the Ayatollah of the Assembly” because they couldn’t control him and hated him so much that they threw out a whole political system and replaced it with the much-flawed term limit system, just to get one man. Willie Brown. Oh, this new Schwarzenegger is good.

Has Arnold Schwarzenegger changed? I’m not convinced. I think it’s another Republican strategy to regain the trust of the public. That’s what ideologues do when their political agenda is frustrated. Schwarzenegger is just the latest in a line frustrated ideologues looking for a new message, which he is calling “a new way.” Yeah, right. I think the Republicans have found their national spokesperson and another way to exploit Schwarzenegger’s celebrity. Disguise him as a “centrist,” calling for “Post Partisanism,” the new buzz word for “Republicans looking for help.”

BC Columnist Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America. His website is AnthonySamad.com. Click here to contact Mr. Samad.