The Cowardice Of Governor Girly-Man

After this lamentable descent, I thought that Arnold Schwartzeneggar's despicable pathos couldn't sink any lower than this.  At the conclusion of that last post, I made the following prediction:

If the California Republican Party has a single spark of life left within it, it will use it to vomit Conan the Contrarian out of its mouth.  That it hasn't long before this final straw outrage is prima facie proof that it is already in the political grave.

The Golden State GOP did not follow my advice - which goes a long way in explaining why they caved to the Ah-nuld/Donk killer tax increases and spending gusher with barely a whimper.  But Ah-nuld almost did the favor for them (via Newsmax Insider):

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and several advisers a few months ago discussed whether he should follow the move of his friend Michael Bloomberg, the New York City mayor who left the Republican Party to become an independent.

But in the end, Schwarzenegger and crew decided that Californians already saw him as independent of the GOP, and there would be no point in a switch, according to Schwarzenegger biographer Joe Mathews, author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy. 

The governor’s recent battle with GOP lawmakers over efforts to balance the budget, and his criticism of Republicans who opposed President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, are only the most recent examples of Arnold’s alienation from mainstream Republicans:

• When he served as President George H.W. Bush’s fitness czar, Schwarzenegger was critical of the administration’s education policy, Mathews reported on The Daily Beast
  Web site.
  
• In 1998, Schwarzenegger publicly criticized the Republican Party for leading the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
  
• Schwarzenegger was a tepid supporter of George W. Bush in 2004, and agreed only at the last minute to deliver a speech at the GOP convention, according to Mathews. And he made only one appearance with Bush during the campaign. Four years later, Schwarzenegger skipped the GOP convention altogether.
  
• As governor, Schwarzenegger has appointed about the same number of Democrats as Republicans to state offices, and his vow in his second inaugural address to govern as a “post-partisan” angered some Republicans who had worked for his re-election.

Republicans, for their part, have routinely opposed Schwarzenegger’s budgets, torpedoed his effort to establish universal health coverage in the state, and fought Schwarzenegger initiatives on prisons, water, the environment, and infrastructure investment.

“The most consequential political divide in America’s largest state,” Mathews notes, “is not between Democrats and Republicans but between the centrist GOP governor and his own party.”

"Centrist" GOP governor?  Let us revisit some highlights of his address to the 2004 Republican National Convention, shall we?:

I finally arrived here in 1968. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire.

The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left.

But then I heard Nixon speak. Then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military.

Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air.

I said to my friend, I said, ‘What party is he?’

My friend said, ‘He's a Republican.’

I said, ‘Then I am a Republican.’

Sure sounds like Ah-nuld knew what the GOP stands for four and a half years ago, and was sure as hell identifiying himself with it then.

“My fellow immigrants, my fellow Americans, how do you know if you are a Republican? Well, I tell you how. If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.

If you believe a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group, then you are a Republican.

If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does, then you are a Republican.

If you believe our educational system should be held accountable for the progress of our children, then you are a Republican.

If you believe this country, not the United Nations, is the best hope for democracy, then you are a Republican.

And, ladies and gentlemen, if you believe that we must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism, then you are a Republican.

Sure doesn't sound "centrist" to me.  But here's the day-glo money shot:

Now, there's another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people and faith in the U.S. economy. And to those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie-men.

Physicianator, heal thyself.  You have become a total, complete, comprehensive hypocrite.  You have come to stand for everything you once condemned.  You have been assimilated into the Donk Collective.

And you don't even have the courage to stop haunting the corpse of the state party you betrayed.

Anybody in Gollyfornia up for another recall election?  I understand Gray Davis would like his old job back.

Heck, it would probably move Sacramento to the right, assuming the Ah-nuld/Donk killer tax increases haven't already dwindled the population down to moronized Hollywood celebs and illegal aliens.