Over at my fave site, The Corner, Tim Graham lists five possible negatives to a Schwarzenegger governorship:
1. Liberal media will have a new Dan Quayle caricature to show how much smarter Democrats are. But Arnold's no dummy, you suggest? Neither was Quayle. But if they can exploit the image, they will. Reporters will be asking about Swedish-style land-use planning just to get the gaffe.
Other than not knowing what liberal media he's talking about, this isn't going to happen. Quayle wasn't a dummy, but he wasn't Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, or Hoover, either. There's nothing wrong with desiring more intellectual ability of a possible President than the fact that, even though he's not that smart, he's "no dummy." Schwarzenegger's is plenty smart and he isn't going to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
2. Liberal media will have a new Rudy Giuliani/Christie Whitman character at the NY convention to constantly underline how "fringe right" the GOP is on abortion and homosexuality.
The Democrats had Bob Casey at its conventions. Was this used to show how "finge left" the Democrats were on abortion?
3. After giving every responsible candidate in the recall race a fraction of the attention the Terminator gets, Gov. Arnold gets eight times as much attention as all other 49 governors combined (not to mention about 500 congressmen). That's how it worked for Gov. Ventura. Confirms theory that reporters think voters are deeply stupid and easily swayed by celebrity.
Reporters report stories that their readers want to read. It's not about stupid or celebrity.
Ventura was not just a celebrity. He was different. That was what demanded the attention. Will a Governor Schwarzenegger be different or just a run-of-the-mill moderate Governor? If he's different -- if he does things differently -- he'll get attention. If he's not -- attention won't be paid.
4. Despite the odd thought of Democratic, Starr-loathing operatives bombarding reporters with Arnold's sexual exploits and philosophies (oral sex isn't cheating), any Republican who even whispers in defense of Arnold's wild life will be portrayed as a complete hypocrite on the Lewinsky saga.
It wasn't that oral sex wasn't cheating. It was that some of us (in fact, most of us) didn't think it mattered. For those to whom all of that mattered yet defend Schwarzenegger's "wild life", yeah, hypocrite might just be the appropriate description. I'm going to be consistant, though. What Schwarzenegger did before is his own business.
5. Maria Shriver as First Lady of anything? Can't we complete the recent trend of Kennedy family electoral defeat?
I didn't realize that there was a trend. As far as I know, Edward Kennedy is still a Senator and Patrick Kennedy is still a Congressman. Sure, Kathleen Townsend lost. Did Joseph Kennedy II actually run for Governor and lose? I though he withdrew his candidacy.
As far as I can count, here are all the Kennedy electoral losses: 1968 Robert Kennedy lost the Oregon Democratic Primary (yeah, that's right, he won all the other state primaries in which he was entered as did his brother in 1960), 1972 Sargeant Shriver (John and Robert's brother-in-law and Schwarzenegger's father-in-law) lost the Vice-President race as McGovern's running mate, 1980 Edward Kennedy lost a bunch of primaries then lost a convention fight, 2002 Kathleen Townsend lost the Maryland Governor's race. I think that's it, but I could be missing one or two here or there. Considering that Patrick wins every two years and Edward every six, I don't see where the losing trend is. They sure do win a lot.