July 18, 2004

TERMINATE THE "GIRLIE-MEN" -- Schwarzenegger instructs California crowd:
"If these [Democrats] won't do the job, I'm going to announce each of you a terminator. Nov. 2 is judgment day. That's when you go to the polls."
That, at least, is how the AP reporter tells the story. The LA Times quotes Schwarzenegger this way:
"I want each and every one of you to go the polls on Nov. 2nd. That will be judgment day. I want you to go to the polls. . . . You are the terminators, yes!"
Amazing that two reporters attend the same speech, and yet report completely different remarks. Someone here is making up sentences -- perhaps both. In any case, here is Schwarzenegger's "girlie-man" line, at least as recreated or artistically imagined by the LA Times reporter:
"[The Democrat legislators] cannot have the guts to come out there in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you. I want to represent those special interests: the unions, the trial lawyers.' . . . I call them girly-men."
UPDATE: Hugh Hewett, who MC'ed Schwarzenegger's Ontario rally, has Schwarzenegger calling the Democrat legislators "girly boys". Ouch.

UPDATE II: "By 2006, California could have a dramatically different political landscape, with part-time and more moderate legislators and a more streamlined state bureaucracy, if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's renewed threats against the status quo catch fire with voters. As the governor fights against a Legislature he says is resisting his calls for change, he is campaigning this weekend against individual lawmakers." -- The AP's Jim Wasserman.

UPDATE III The LA Times joins in the effort to chop Schwarzenegger down at the knees: "A strange thing happened when budget talks began dragging and Schwarzenegger shifted into campaign mode to get his way. Democrats didn't seem to care. Increasingly inside the Capitol, there is a sense that when Schwarzenegger goes to a mall in Chico or a Mexican restaurant in Dixon to talk politics, the people flock to see the Terminator, not the governor. There is a corresponding belief among Democrats that the governor's personal popularity doesn't automatically translate into support for his policy proposals."

We'll see in November, won't we. Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack