Arnold Schwarzenegger believes that Republicans can add to their growing majority by moving the party to the left. Here’s what he said in a recent German newspaper interview: “I would like the Republican Party to cross this line, move a little further left and place more weight on the center. This would immediately give the party 5 percent more votes without it losing anything elsewhere.” What he means by “further left” is to abandon the pro-life and anti-homosexual planks in the party’s platform. If this happens, the GOP will lose far more votes than it gains. Consider what happened to pro-homosexual ballot initiatives. A majority of voters, Democrats and Republicans, voted against them.
Lots of people do not vote because there is little difference between the two parties. I believe most of these people are conservative in their political views. The African-American vote generally goes to the Democrats even though African-Americans are more conservative on moral issues than their party. They believe government programs actually work. History is against them. A growing number of African-Americans are beginning to understand this. We’re beginning to see a discernable shift among these traditionally Democrat voters because of social issues like abortion and homosexuality. Hispanics are trending toward the GOP because of social issues. If the GOP shifts left, then there really won’t be a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties. Christian conservatives will leave the GOP in droves. It’s not that they’ll vote Democrat, they just won’t vote. It will be at this time that a third-party candidate might be viable.
Some are pointing to Arnold’s political win in California as a political trend-setter. As the Red-Blue election map shows, California is not the political model for the GOP. Schwarzenegger is 90% liberal and 10% conservative. There’s not much philosophical difference between John Kerry and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Kerry married for money, while Arnold married for prestige and position. In order to realize the American dream, and be accepted in American society, Arnold knew that he had to marry into America’s royal family. That meant marrying a Kennedy.
He has been cold and calculating ever since he entered the self-centered world of bodybuilding. He believes he is special and above the inferior masses. Most men who devote themselves to bodybuilding, contrary to popular opinion, do not have an inferiority complex. They honestly believe they are better than the rest. The scrawny kid who starts pumping iron believes he should be noticed. A newly sculpted body puts it in everyone’s face. If you ever get the chance to watch Pumping Iron (1977), the documentary about the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition, you’ll see the real Arnold in action. Here’s how one person described it.
The film captures the Austrian Oak in all his vicious, megalomaniacal glory: Arnold bullying, tricking, and psyching out his dopey rival Lou Ferrigno [who went on to play the “Incredible Hulk’ in the short-lived TV series]. Arnold extolling his own ambitions: “I was always dreaming about very powerful people, dictators, people like Jesus, being remembered for thousands of years.”
How does this translate into politics? Arnold has taken his hedonistic and self-centered lifestyle that propelled him to fame and fortune in Hollywood and the business world into the realm of power politics. He governs the way he believes and lives, but within the confines of political boundaries. He knows the political rules and works hard to bend them to his own will. California is the best state to put his style of political maneuvering into play. It’s all about the self.
He has no care for the unborn. “Do what you will” is his motto. Homosexuality doesn’t bother him since he was part of the sex culture of bodybuilding where anything went, and it did. His interview in the August 1977 issue of Oui magazine is a case in point. It’s too pornographic to repeat here. He’s a materialist at heart. That’s why he is described as an economic conservative. For him, money and power are twin gods. Of course, he doesn’t lead a hedonistic lifestyle anymore. He knows that the road to power (he has enough money) is through suits and ties and not training shorts.
If conservatives take advice from Arnold, they will doom themselves and the Republican Party.