Dear Arnie Baby…
[Probably due to one of
those Internet worms that are going around, this email
from
JC@ImKingoftheWorld.com
mysteriously appeared in my inbox. It`s even more
relevant now that Arnold Schwarzenegger
failed to muscle
Tom McClintock out of the
California gubernatorial race at the GOP state
convention this weekend.—Steve Sailer]
Loved you in
Terminator 3. You looked massive in your nude
scene. (Eat your heart out, Vin Diesel, my man Arnold`s
still got it!)
Sorry I couldn`t be there for you. But I guess that
Mostow kid did okay sitting in my chair: $150 mil
domestic, and $260 mil overseas. Not T2`s
numbers, but…
I`ve been meaning to tell you, the most emotionally
powerful moment in T3 for me was when you heaved
that blonde Terminatrix headfirst through the urinal.
Made me think about three or four of my exes!
But enough about me and my alimony payments. Let`s
talk about you and your plan to pull a Grace Kelly and
kick yourself upstairs before the wrinkles kick in.
Great idea, but I do have to mention one thing. I
don`t know if you`ve ever been to
Sacramento, but my people tell me it`s nothing
like Monaco.
Now, Arnie, we`ve been friends since T1, what,
20 years ago? You know I won`t lead you wrong. It`s me,
Jimmy. I told you you`d look great in a tuxedo in
True Lies.
I told you that nobody`d think you were gay for wearing
black leather in T1.
I want you to win this thing—even though I would
pick up another $50 million check for rights to the
Terminator characters if you dropped out and did
T4 instead. (But, hey, we`ve both got enough money
where we don`t ever have to work again. Come to think of
it, I`ve barely done a lick of work for six years now…)
Anyway, I thought I`d give you a man-to-man talk on
this governor`s race. I don`t know much about politics,
but I do know a few things about the public.
- Remember, these
campaign consultants are just like every manager
in Hollywood: they want their cut. They all own a
piece of the ad agencies that get a commission for
placing campaign commercials. So they want to spend
millions on content-free image ads of you talking to
cute schoolchildren—like the boring parts in
Kindergarten Cop.
Forget that. You`re Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can
get more
free publicity than God.
But you`ve got to get in there and mix it up.
People want to see you stand strong for something.
- Remember that every vote
counts the same—no matter how much the media
thinks some votes are
morally superior.
It`s like when that creep
Kenneth Turan dumped on Titanic. So what if
he`s the critic for the LA Times? He`s one guy.
Hundreds of millions of teenaged girls liked it just
fine. Unlike him, they even paid for their tickets.
One point eight
billion dollars later, I think I earned the last
laugh.
The media is saying you suffer a
gender gap, just like they said with Reagan. No
surprise. We`ve always known that there are even more
guys who want to be you than there are girls who want to
have your baby (and there were always plenty of those,
as I recall).
This is a problem only if guys` votes don`t
count as much the girls` votes do. I`m just a
truck driver from Canada, so maybe I don`t
understand the intricacies of the U.S. Constitution as
well as the L.A. Times does. But I think
everybody`s
vote still counts equally. You can win if you have
the guys.
Same with minority votes versus white votes. You`re
only supposed to talk about how much you want minority
votes. But white votes still count too. Whites still
cast a lot more votes than minorities in
California—a three to one ratio in 2002. You can
win if you have the whites.
- Remember, one difference between
elections and movies is that voters only vote once (
supposedly).
You can`t get young guys to go over and over like we
did with T2. Instead, an election is like one
of those Academy Award movies like Chicago or
A Beautiful Mind where they make big bucks by
getting a whole bunch of folks who normally don`t go
to movies at all. Turnout matters.
Look how the Republicans won the 2002 national
elections—they got a lot of rednecks who don`t normally
vote all worked up about the War of Terror. You gotta
get those kinds of folks to the polls.
- Yeah, you`ve got the right idea
about not peaking too soon. The public`s attention
span is short these days, with a new number one movie
every weekend. It`s not like back in 1997-1998
when Titanic could rule the box office for 15
weeks in row. (Of course, maybe they aren`t making
them like they used to…) You`ve got to own the
week before the election—and open huge.
But you have to lay the groundwork for that last week
right now. The absentee ballots have gone out.
I`m getting a little worried.
You know, I hate to say this, but if I needed
somebody to play a Republican governor and Bonnie
Timmermann sent this McClintock guy over with his
executive-looking silver temples and that way he seems
to know what he`s talking about when he`s discussing the
budget, I`d say, "Yeah, audiences will buy this guy
as a governor."
Not to say you don`t look like a leader—you`re my
choice to play King of the World—but there`s something
about this McClintock…
Maybe you can get
Karl Rove to make McClintock take a dive. Remind the
Bushies that there`s that thing in the Constitution
about how you can`t run for the White House, but that a
Governor McClintock would automatically be heavyweight
Presidential Timber come 2008, when they want Jeb to
continue the
dynasty.
- Strategy. You`ve got to win this
de facto Republican primary soon, and big, so that
McClintock drops out and so you don`t get nibbled
on by all the non-crazy little guys like Warren
Farrell and
Joe Guzzardi. And you`ve got to win the de facto
general election.
You ever meet Dick Nixon? I guess he liked my
Rambo script, because he was real friendly once
backstage at the Today show. He told me his
secret was to run to the right in the Republican
primaries, and back to the center in the general
election.
But this election`s different. The big issue that
will make the Right forgive all the pesky ones like
abortion and gay rights, and win you the de facto
Republican primary, is also the issue that will win over
the rest of the electorate.
You and I both did a fair amount of blue-collar work
in California back in the Seventies. I drove trucks and
buses and worked in a machine shop; you had that
chimney repair scam. It was tough work, but the
pay wasn`t bad and
houses were cheap back then.
Nowadays, when I talk to some guy driving a big
earthmover or running a drill press (you know me, I
still have to check out every mighty machine I see),
unless he`s in the union, his pay stinks. No way can he
buy a house out here.
I ask him why he`s not making much more than I made
in 1975, and he always tells me the same thing: "Too
many illegals, and too many of them working off the
books."
The people telling me this include a lot of
Mexican-American guys, at least the ones who
can vote. Maybe they`re trying to get their
sisters and moms in to the U.S. legally, although
that takes years. Still, at least the legal system puts
them in the driver`s seat in choosing which relatives
will come. But meanwhile, some third cousin sneaks in
and shows up on their doorstep, demanding to
sleep on their couch for a couple of years.
All these guys are mad that no-one will even talk
about this. They see articles like this one in the LA
Times "Candidates
Skirt Immigration Issue" [by Teresa Watanabe,
September 8, 2003] gloating over how this "divisive"
issue isn`t allowed to be debated anymore. And they
aren`t happy.
I`m not surprised when the paper ran a later article
admitting that
16 percent of likely voters told the Times
poll that immigration was the biggest issue in the
election. [“Polls Suggest More Partisan Campaigning,”
by Mark Z. Barabak, September 13 2003].
Now, lots of times these guys don`t get around to
voting. They don`t like politicians. And, let`s face it,
some of these guys don`t run their private lives on Palm
Pilots, if you know what I mean. Maybe on Election Day
they stop off at a buddy`s house on the way home from
work and get high, or maybe they`re bummed because their
old lady walked out on them, and they forget all about
voting.
But this year, they`re fired up. Davis wants to
triple their car registration tax, and that hurts. These
driver`s licenses for illegals that Davis and Bustamante
just signed for seem like
nuts to them. It just sends a message to Mexico:
"C`mon up and drive my wages down some more!"
Lots of their friends have moved to
Nevada and
Utah and are telling them they`re doomed if they
stay in California. But they don`t want to move – they
love this state.
They`re looking for a leader.
I know you`re worried about getting called a racist,
what with your
Dad and all. But the point is that Davis and
Bustamante were the ones who injected race and
immigration into the election. Bustamante all of a
sudden has turned himself from the Agribusiness Defender
into the
Chicano Avenger. And this
MEChA BS!
I`m an immigrant like you, so I can say that running
against illegal immigration is a no-brainer.
Remember Sonny Bono? Little guy, never pumped iron in
his life, but he got himself elected to Congress. He had
this shtick: In debates, the moderator would say
something like, "Mr. Bono now has three minutes to
talk about illegal immigration. He`d stand up, say, "
What`s
to talk about? It`s illegal," and sit down.
People loved it. Hell, his widow`s still in Congress.
In fact, who better to run against illegal
immigration than America`s most famous immigrant?
Hey, Arnie, I love ya and give my best to Maria,
JC
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily
blog.]


