California Conservative

S.F. Chronicle reports: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first in-depth televised appeal to California voters, delivered an unusually aggressive defense against millions of dollars worth of attacks from unions Monday, seeking to portray himself as an independent leader “fighting for the people” with his Nov. 8 special election agenda.”

[O]n Monday, Schwarzenegger — for the first time ever in his relatively short political career — took the stage to face dozens of unscripted questions from an audience not screened by his staff. The governor, in a primetime show televised on KTVU Channel 2, demonstrated his salesmanship and carefully sidestepped tough questions.

So says the Chronicle. In terms of “sidestepping,” depends on what the meaning of is is. Arnold did a solid job making his case.

[In a related story, the Chronicle reports: "At one point in the first part of the program, Shandobil chided Perata for talking around the question he was asked. "Hey," Perata grinned, "I'm a politician." Well, that explains it.]

Schwarzenegger is backing four initiatives. Prop. 74 would lengthen the time it takes for public school teachers to acquire tenure; Prop. 75 would require public employee unions to get written permission from their members to spend dues on political campaigns; Prop. 76 would limit spending on the state budget and let the governor make mid-year cuts; and Prop. 77 would strip the Legislature of its ability to draw boundaries for political districts. Schwarzenegger portrayed all four initiatives as the fixes to government he needs in order to make later investments in education, roads and health care.

Who opposes him? Labor unions. That says it all.

RELATED:
Unions Raise More Than $80 Million
To Defeat Schwarzenegger’s Initiatives
(includes many more links)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Arnold, California, Elections, Special Interests. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.