Arnold Assists In Antonio’s Political Suicide
“Nearly two months after he won his party’s nomination for governor and many of the state’s leading Democrats endorsed him, Phil Angelides has yet to secure Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s blessing.
Villaraigosa says publicly that he is holding off for now because he needs to secure bipartisan support in Sacramento for legislation that would give him control of the Los Angeles public schools.
“So what I’ve said to Phil, and he’s good with that, is that after this is over, of course I’m going to be with the Democrat,” Villaraigosa said Thursday.
Some who are close to Villaraigosa acknowledge privately that he is also wary of tweaking Angelides’ Republican opponent, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has promised to sign the schools legislation.
It is now official …
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has asked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to assist in his political suicide attempt.
In exchange for making sure Antonio can never get a Democrat nomination for a statewide office, all Arnold had to do is promise he would “do his best” to give the Mayor a failed school district — Los Angeles Unified. Antonio has already chosen the next Superintendent for the district a Dr. Cortines, who previously served and had to be pushed out because he does not believe in parents, teachers or students involvement in the decision making of the district.
When he last led the district, which had been in the process of decentralizing, he immediately re-centralized, taking all decision making away from the stakeholders and giving it back to the bureaucrats. This is the man Antonio wants to run the district. Antonio’s slogan for LAUSD is a simple one, “We don’t need no stinkin school board, parents or teachers making decisions, I am smart enough for all of them. I can be King of the World.” Now, he will only be king of Los Angeles–for instance, he is putting a one billion dollar measure for housing on the November ballot. A good deal of that money, if passed, will go to affordable housing for illegal aliens. I doubt if this bond will pass — but it will help to defeat the disease that has become epidemic in California, bonded indebtedness.
Happily, Arnold is playing into this massive misplaced ego and giving Antonio what he wants. Of course, the Progressives will spend a lifetime paying Villaraigosa back for his failure to support Phil Angelides.
For a Democrat wannabe leader not to endorse, even pro forma, a serious nominee for Governor is suicide — if it becomes a story. The LA Times has noticed this and made it a story. Activists on the blogs are making this a story. The Democrats have two main sources of “volunteers”; the unions and radicals. The unions want Angelides and the radicals (MoveOn.org types) want Phil. Both have very long memories, and they will want to “thank” Antonio in his future races for his lack of support of the Democrat Party in this race.
Remember those Angelides ads about Westly supporting Arnolds’ deficit bonds? This will make even better TV, especially with Antonio admitting that his control of a school district is more important than the Democrats taking back the governors office. He is putting himself first, before his Party and his State.
In a brilliant political move, Arnold has divided the Democrat Party and assured that the Democrats nominate a loser in 2010 for governor, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The Progressives will demand the defeat of Antonio, Gavin makes Putin of Russia look like a supporter of the Free market and families, and Antonio will have to answer for the corruption and failures of LAUSD.
What do you think, should we give Gov. Schwarzenegger an “A” for political acumen? Is this an unintended political suicide, or does Antonio understand he is part of a political party? Should this even matter?
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Steve Frank is the publisher of California Political News and Views and a Senior Contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org. He is also a consultant currently working on gambling issues and advising other consultants on policy and coalition building.
Read more of his work here or at his blog.
Technorati Tags: California, Arnold, Villaraigosa, Phil Angelides
August 1st, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Boy, is this getting fun!
Arnold is running around all over, making kissy-face with Tony Blair, talking about global warming, looking upbeat and in charge. Meanwhile, Angelides is…..ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz. Has anyone seen or heard the guy in weeks?
Every week that goes by will see Arnold’s numbers go up. Angelides is about as exciting as a tax audit. His “message” is “more taxes”, un-reforming Workers’Comp, “more taxes”, more money for schools, “more taxes”…it just goes on.
As for 2010 - I agree that Newsom will probably get the nod. He’s got to run for re-election in a couple of years, and absent some disaster (well, a BIG disaster), he’ll get the nomination. ]
My only hope is that he has to run against McClintock, who will be able to point to the mess that San Francisco has become under ultra-liberal “government”. Insane rent control, legions of vagrants, a socialized health care plan that is going to run businesses out of town, etc.
August 1st, 2006 at 3:35 pm
While I cannot stand Villaraigosa (he’s a leftist nutjob), I’m not sure I buy the premise that this equates to political suicide for him. Sure, it would make him enemies on the far left and amongst the political elites, but Americans in general love a maverick. Standing against the Party could play well amongst centrists and non-partisans, especially those not looking too closely at what specifically he’s attempting to do or at his record. In fact, by pretending that he could endorse Arnold, he could create an illusion that he is a moderate and win the favor of the Arnold Democrats that helped put Schwarzenegger into office. I think it’s a bit of a mistake to dismiss the Democrats as just the loud-mouthed radicals and activists. There is a middle-of-the-road element to the party that Republicans are somewhat dependant on for victories in statewide races.
August 1st, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Aaannold has star power and that goes a long way in elections.
August 1st, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Have you seen the video from Villaraigosa and Nunez’s phony town hall meeting last week where both of them take off after a couple of people criticize what they’ve been doing?
It’s here.
August 2nd, 2006 at 10:17 am
There is no such thing as a California Conservative…if you choose to live in California you are a LIBERAL. Mel Gibson is the typical California “Conservative”