Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Ask an Austrian

Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard,

Conservatives won't want to hear this, but the Republican who maneuvered his way into the most impressive victory of the election was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Okay, he's sui generis. But he won a landslide victory after moving to the center, while holding onto conservatives by not hiking taxes. Just think if he were eligible for the White House in 2008. Even (some) conservatives would be clamoring for him to run.
Where is Illinois's Arnold?

5 comments:

Levois 5:02 PM  

I think that's difficult to determine. But I don't necessarily think moving to the center is the right thing. Be conservative just don't go into Christian Right territory because that would be disastrous.

Anonymous,  5:07 PM  

Isn't that what Blagojevich is trying to do? Run a lot of popular social programs without raising taxes to pay for them?

Levois 6:52 PM  

Blagojevich is more like Gray Davis.

Anonymous,  7:38 AM  

Anonymous at 5:07 PM is right that Blagojevich is following the Schwarzenegger policy formula, and it's working. Let's face it, Rod's victory on Tuesday in light of his negatives is pretty astounding. Even though many of us political geeks hate him, I think it's important to acknowledge that he scored an impressive victory (even if it's only 50%) on Tuesday.

But Blagojevich's problems have not gone away, and I think he'll find it impossible to govern even with the Democratic majority. Now, Blagojevich may not care; he and his closest advisers never really cared about making government work. And that's why he's not Gray Davis, even if he will be equally unpopular. Davis actually governed well, and was the victim of his lackluster public style and the shenigans of greedy utility companies out west. Blagojevich is the opposite: his publicity machine works overtime, but his inability to govern will create problems that anger voters.

We don't have a gubernatorial recall in Illinois, but I bet if one were on the ballot on Tuesday it would have passed overwhelmingly.

Levois 6:14 PM  

Well that's another thing we should get in Illinois, Gubernatorial recall.

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