cross-posted at skippy as well as a literal cornucopia of other community blogs.
gov. ah-nold trots out his first campaign ad for re-election:
sacramento – gov. arnold schwarzenegger’s political team on monday debuted its first re-election ad of 2006, focusing mostly on the governor’s accomplishments of two years ago…
the 30-second ad, called “tomorrow,” appears to be a montage of san francisco cityscapes and stock footage from the 2003 recall election. a narrator cites schwarzenegger’s early-term successes in cutting the deficit, overhauling the worker’s compensation system and reducing california’s vehicle license fees. it closes with a shot of schwarzenegger’s face and says his “leadership is making california work again.”
we have seen this ad, several times, and the problem with it is simple: after two years of leading california, there’s little for him to crow about.
more, after the jump:
the ad asks us to remember back in the days before ah-nold took office. remember the car tax tripled? yes, we do. remember the deficits? uh, no. we don’t actually deal with the deficits, so, no, we don’t remember them. remember california being literally in the dark? yes, remember some blackouts, but we also remember the enron trial (can you say “market manipulation”?) currently going on.
the ad asks states that ah-nold lowered the car tax and reduced the deficits, and created 400,000 new jobs.
we remember the car tax. the deficits, well, we’ll take his word on that. the 400,000 new jobs? in a state of over 35,800,000 people, that’s a wee bit over 1%.
ok, let’s review. he lowered the car tax. and…uh…he gave 1% of california a job.
the problem with ah-nold’s new ad is that, at least for skippy international, when it asks us to remember the last two years, we remember a special election that cost the state over 50 million dollars, and which the california voters used to soundly defeat every one of ah-nold’s propositions.
we remember that ah-nold, who ran on a campaign that painted incumbent gray davis as a serial fund-raiser, has raised more money while in office than any previous california governor.
we remember ah-nold trying to force the nurses of this state to take on a ratio of 6 patients to a nurse, more than the state law currently allows, for patient safety reasons.
and the car tax. we remember the car tax.
the only viable, tangible thing that ah-nold can point to is that he lowered the car tax. and, as intoned by the overly sincerely, intense narrator in the commerical, it seems even more inconsequential. so trivial, in fact, that we would swear the ad was an snl parody.
although something seems to be working, as the latest public policy institute poll finds ah-nold with a significant lead over his two rivals, state treasurer phil angelides, and steve wesley, the favorite of mrs. skippy:
gov. arnold schwarzenegger holds a solid lead over either of his democratic challengers in a head-to-head battle in the november election, at least among those who have a preference, but 30 percent of likely voters remain undecided, according to a non-partisan poll released today…
one-on-one, schwarzenegger holds an eight percentage point advantage over former ebay executive and current state controller steve westly and a 12-point lead over treasurer phil angelides.
if gov. ah-nold’s re-election team came to us for advice, we’d tell them, hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. but do something about that silly tv ad.
addendum: speaking of last year’s special election (“special in the same sense, apparently, as in “special olympics”), a california court has ruled that gov. ah-nold’s campaign committee broke the law in the run up to the big day:
the 3rd district court of appeal’s decision said schwarzenegger’s california recovery team — used to promote his four failed ballot initiatives last fall — violated campaign finance rules by not reporting expenditures within 24 hours in the campaign’s last three months.
that led the union-backed alliance for a better california to file a complaint thursday with the state’s campaign watchdog, the fair political practices commission.
under state law, the commission has 120 days to file a civil lawsuit seeking penalties up to $25 million — the estimated amount of the improperly reported expenditures. or it could seek smaller administrative penalties of $5,000 per violation.
