View From Lodi, CA: Is The Terminator Terminating?


California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been very
effective recently at

making enemies
of the exact people whose votes he`ll
need if he hopes to be re-elected next November.

Last week, 30,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters and
police officers gathered in Sacramento and Los Angeles
to demonstrate their disgust with what they view as
Schwarzenegger`s ties to special interests and his plans
to spend $80 million on a special election.

Clyde
Rivers, president of the California School Employees
Association, said,


"He has
broken his promises to our schools, time and again.  And
he has broken his promises to the workers, and injured
workers of California, time and again.  And he broke his
word on workers` pensions time and again."

[CTA
News
, May 25, 2005]

Barbara
E. Kerr, California Teacher`s Association president,
echoing Rivers, said “Teachers
are fed up with this governor`s broken promises to our
kids and schools.”

Nurses,
protesting in Sacramento for the second time in two
months, are just as unhappy as teachers.


"Arnold Schwarzenegger has a very clear agenda–to shift
the burden of California`s financial problems onto the
backs of working people rather than having corporations
pay for their fair share,"

said Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses
Association.

Schwarzenegger`s addiction to

fund raising
and his affinity for corporate
interests is astonishing even allowing that he is a
politician.

When Schwarzenegger announced in 2003 that he would be a
gubernatorial candidate, he promised, 


"I will go to Sacramento and I will clean house. I don`t
have to take money from anybody. I have plenty of
money."

At
the time, Schwarzenegger`s pledge was persuasive with
voters because then Governor Gray Davis was considered a
craven cash machine.

But since October 2003, Schwarzenegger has raised $40
million, an average of $80,000 each day. That computes
to twice as much cash as Davis ever generated for his
coffers.

Schwarzenegger doesn`t mind traveling to chase down big
bucks. Over a three day period from May 20-23,
Schwarzenegger attended fund raisers—via private jet— in
Tampa, Miami and Orlando, Florida; Chicago, Illinois and
Dallas, Texas.

His hosts in Florida and Chicago were real estate and
insurance tycoons; in Texas, oil barons.


San Francisco Chronicle

columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross in their May
22nd column titled

“Governor Proves to be road warrior in his first 18
months,”
calculated that since his election
Schwarzenegger has taken 35 trips (one day in every 5)
totaling 113 days out of state.

Davis was also out of state 113 days…but it took his
entire five-year tenure to reach that figure.

In
March, fellow Hollywood star

Warren Beatty
offered

sound advice
for Schwarzenegger as he looks ahead to
his re-election bid.

Said Beatty:


"I`d like to be rooting
for Arnold. But he has to do something…. Arnold has to
spend some of that popularity that he is so sure that he
has and lead the people he is so sure will follow him by
telling them a truth that may not be so pleasant to hear
and that the Republican Party he seeks to seduce will
not like. That truth is that in order to have the decent
society that we sought to construct and maintain and
voted for in California… it`s going to cost money
particularly for rich people like me and Arnold. It`s
called paying higher taxes, and not waiting around
hoping the economy will boom to pay our bills…. The only
taxes the Governor has suggested raising are called fees
and tuitions that had been provided by the state in
programs for people who need help and can least afford
to pay. Those programs the Governor wants terminated. At

long last Mr. Terminator, do you want to terminate
our decency?"

Continued Beatty:


"If you`re looking for
something to terminate—terminate your dinners with the
lobbyists of K St. Terminate collecting out of state
right wing money. Terminate the special election you
want to hold to divert the public`s attention away from
the budget. Confront the powerful, not the nurses, not
the teachers, or the children, or the students, or the
elderly, or the sick, or the cops, of the firemen, or
the workers, or the disabled, or the blind…. These are
not, as you called them: the `special interests.`
Beatty`s
final warning: 

“Do the right thing.
After dining out at all of those rich and powerful
fundraising dinners, who knows? Some `stooge` or
`girlie man`
or `loser` may just pop out of nowhere
and eat you for lunch."

As
summer approaches, Schwarzenegger should pause from his
mad dash for cash to reflect on how he is perceived by
Californians.

Schwarzenegger`s popularity, now at 40%, continues to
plummet.

As
Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state,
Schwarzenegger has incurred the ire of California`s
strongest unions and their members.

Without Gray Davis to kick around, the sailing in 2006
may not be as smooth for Schwarzenegger as it was during
the 2003 recall election.

Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the


Lodi News-Sentinel
.