August 18, 2003

Jack Kemp -- fire Buffett. Quotable:

As a native Californian, my instincts tell me Schwarzenegger will never see the inside of the governor's mansion in Sacramento unless he says hasta la vista to Buffett before Election Day arrives.

Schwarzenegger has his hands still clutching the "third rail" of California politics, and I think he's finding it a lot harder to break free than any of his political advisors have imagined.

An enraged George Putnam -- radio talk host and original backer of Proposition 13 -- also called for the firing of Buffett. An enraged George Putnam -- imagine it. You've really screwed up when you've enraged a man as sweet natured as Putnam. Putnam beat the drums on what a threat a Schwarzenegger governorhship would be to the senior citizens of California.

So far Schwarzenegger's response to the Buffett fiasco has been too little, too late -- his press release of the other day simply isn't registering over the outrage over Buffett and the suggestion that Proposition 13 should be trashed.

And now Bill Simon is running radio spots saying this:

"I'm Bill Simon. Gray Davis tripled our car taxes and now Arnold Schwarzenegger's team wants to triple our property taxes, which just goes to show you, don't send a liberal to do a tax-fighter's job."

Schwarzenegger's latest written press statement reads as follows:

"I expect many dynamic ideas and policy recommendations from my team. But with regards to my position on Proposition 13, my position is rock solid in support of that initiative."

Schwarzenegger's loudest statement -- Buffett still sitting at the top of his economic policy team. I doubt many have read Schwarzenegger's press release. If you've turned on the radio or watched a news show, it's hard to have missed the fact that Schwarzenegger's top economic advisor opposes Proposition 13 -- but doesn't oppose tax increases. That's still the #1 message coming out of the Schwarzenegger campaign, and it's a message that can only mean disaster for Schwarzenegger's effort to expand support among Republican voters. Schwarzenegger has almost guaranteed that the base of support for McClintock and Simon will hold -- and in the short term will almost certainly expand.

And the thing I can't get over is that none of this should ever have happened.

Posted by Greg Ransom