I just don’t get this statement:
Now, there’s no question that Arnold has racial baggage: he supported Proposition 187, he’s hired a bunch of Pete Wilson’s campaign people, he’s got the whole Nazi father thing to deal with, and he belongs to U.S. English, a group that advocates making English the official language of the United States. But even so, I wonder if that’s really such a big problem.
This is racial baggage? His dad, support for Prop 187, and wanting English to be the official language? The bar for racism, or, in this case, allegations of racism, has now been lowered to the point that the term is meaningless- which is a shame. There are some real racist pukes out there.
rabidfox
I’d suggest a course to deconstruct the works of that great Greek Ethicist, Aesop. With partiuclar reference to boys and wolves.
Greg
I don’t think anyone has figured out how to analyze Arnold yet. At least Kevin’s statements weren’t nearly as inept as the ones that the San Francisco Chronicle included in their front-page story yesterday (and I blogged last night).
Francis W. Porretto
Hm, let’s see. Arnold supported Prop 187, which received two-thirds of the votes cast in the election that ratified it. He’s hired former Wilson staffers, who helped Wilson to two successful and rather popular terms as governor of California. He belongs to US English, which has earned the allegiance of millions and is likely to achieve its goal of declaring English the official language of the U.S. within this decade. And…his father was a Nazi? “Which of these things is not like the others, which of these things just doesn’t belong…”
From some of the comments being made about Schwarzenegger, you can tell the speakers are just visiting this planet.
Kevin Drum
Oh, I think I’ve lived on this particular planet for a while.
I wasn’t making any judgments in my post, just pointing out the obvious: those things are probably going to hurt Arnold in the minority community, which is traditionally strong in California. Like it or not, that’s just the electoral reality.
James Joyner
I noted that passage in Kevin’s post as well, but interpreted as Kevin says–that it would give him some trouble in the Hispanic community. “Racial baggage” probably wasn’t the clearest way to make that point.
RW
Please.
I’ll note that this isn’t the first time that backhanded comments (‘racial baggage’, my eye) have been ‘non-judgmental’.
Nice try.
RW
I sure hope, for Arnold’s sake, that he doesn’t pass out unsharpened pencils or the ‘racial baggage’ may be too much to bear.
Mike the Analyst
In case you had any doubts that Gray Davis would not be Governor on October 8 – here is the latest Field Poll (heard about on Rush):
http://field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/RLS2081.pdf
with the amazing quote (page 3):
“Just 22% now approve of the job Davis is doing. Davis’s job ratings now are on par with those which Californians gave Richard Nixon in early August 1974, just prior to his resignation as President. At that time, just 24% of Californias approved of Nixon’s performance in office…”
My prediction will still hold – Davis WILL resign before the Recall election, and take the wind out of the sails of the Recall-Yes vote. It still might carry, but it’ll be a nail biter.
billhedrick
Arnold _does_ have some racist baggage! His wife’s grandfather was a notorious Nazi symp.
DANEgerus
Racists? You mean like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who make a living like the Italian Blackhand did selling ‘protection’ from themselves?
DANEgerus
Oh you mean Socialists… national socialists, like the Democrats…
So AHnuld’s dad was a National Socialist German Worker’s Party member…shouldn’t the left embrace him as one of their own?
The Nazi’s preached ‘Common use before private use’.
The Nazi’s endorsed Eugenics including the founder of Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger.
The Nazi’s endorsed ‘Gun Control’.
The Nazi’s implemented revolutionary ideologically based ‘change’… they were not ‘conservatives’.
The Nazi’s allies in the Reichstag were the leftist Unions(SPD)
“Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuehrer” (One State, one people, one leader) sounds Collectivist to me
“What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.”? No. It was not Adolf Hitler but Karl Marx himself.
How are ‘Affirmative Action’ and ‘Diversity’ not race based preferences consistent with Nazi Master-race theories? Why is the left against Proposition 54 in California?
We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions. (Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by John Toland, Adolf Hitler, 1977, p. 306)
Maarten
Danegerus, you’re an idiot. Totally insane. I’m not Democrat, but this is just, insane.
Maarten
A Democrat*
Francis W. Porretto
DANEgerus is spot-on. Hitler was famously friendly toward Communists and socialists who wanted to join the Nazi Party, and said so many times.
Hitler and Stalin copied extensively from one another. Many details of their interchanges are given in Paul Johnson’s marvelous 20th Century history Modern Times.
As for the modern Democratic Party, the term that fits them best is “social-welfare fascist.” “Fascist” because they demand absolute government control over all economic activity, using a regulatory rubric; “social-welfare” because that’s their rationale. Needless to say, they deny the characterization…while doing nothing to disavow or distance themselves from the specific reasons that it fits them.
S-Train
We need a little social-welfare facism to deal with a power and health care issues. As much as I adore the free market systems, some things are too important, too life-altering, too serious to just leave to private industry.