The new LA Times poll, just released tonight, shows Majority Now Favors Recall; Schwarzenegger Leads Rivals. Republicans are learning to vote with their heads and not with their hearts as they’ve been doing since nominating Lundgren. In the old days, McClintock could have won major Republican support from people thinking about purity and not about winning. In this election, where primary and general are compressed and they have to consider consequences, things are different:
For McClintock, the poll shows widespread admiration but erosion nonetheless. He is well ahead of Schwarzenegger and Bustamante on whether he has the character and integrity to be governor; three out of four voters say that he does. Voters say McClintock did the best job in the Sacramento debate.
But nearly half of likely voters say McClintock is too conservative to have a realistic chance of winning. Moreover, Schwarzenegger, a moderate, has picked off much of McClintock’s base of support among conservative Republicans. As McClintock’s support in that group dropped from 40% to 31%, Schwarzenegger’s jumped from 45% to 64%.
That shift appears to reflect a sentiment, shared by the state GOP establishment, that a Republican governor who supports legal abortion, gay rights and gun control — anathema to many party loyalists — is still preferable to a Democrat.
“My preference is McClintock,” said Keller, who cited his “pro-life” stand as evidence that he shares her values. “But I understand if the vote is split, we can get something worse, like Bustamante, which would be as bad as Gray or maybe worse.”
She plans to vote for Schwarzenegger.
Democrats held their noses and nominated Davis, and now Republicans are learning to do likewise. Let’s hope the results are better.
If this poll holds up, Arnie will be elected by more voters than those who elected Gray last year. Whether that’s enough to silence those who’ve claimed this recall is “anti-democratic” remains to be seen, but I’m guessing not.
After the recall, the three loneliest men in California are going to be Gray Davis, Cruz Bustamante, and Tom McClintock, and they’ll be so far out in the cold the only people willing to drink with them will be Arianna Huffington and Bill Maher. For Davis, this will be a merciful end, as the man completely lacks the emotional traits that make for a good politician and his performance has been so abysmal that he can’t be enjoying this career. Bustamante is a man of modest gifts who’s unjustly not modest about them, and one whose vocabulary is too limited to serve as governor. He doesn’t know the word “illegal”, for example, and governors have to sign or veto hundreds of bills each year with that word in them. Better he’d gone into butchery as he initially planned at the outset of his community college career. McClintock, I hope, will be the last of the Kool-Aid Konservatives, a nice talk radio host, and a regular guest on Maher’s HBO show.
The rest of California will muddle through somehow.