This morning I had the opportunity to speak with California State Treasurer Phil Angelides for an interview for my blog, Basie!. Angelides happens to be a leading contender to take on Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, and had some choice things to say about the Governator.
Jonathan Singer: There’s a cover story in the Washington Monthly by Mark Barabak called “Is Arnold Losing It?� Barabak’s contention is that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a lot less of a Ronald Reagan figure and a lot more of a Jesse Ventura – cheap gimmicks that work early but peter off later. What do you think of that contention?
Phil Angelides: I actually saw the article. In fact, Paul Glastris, the editor of the Washington Monthly, was out recently and gave me a copy of it. I would say the following: if you really look at Arnold, he is increasingly a mix of George Bush and Jesse Ventura. He shares the same agenda as Bush in so many respects, but is beginning to look more and more like Jesse Ventura in the conduct of the office.
Arnold has always tried to pose himself as a different kind of a Republican. He learned to talk the language of moderation like Bush learned to talk the language of compassionate conservatism back in 2000.
But when you look at what Schwarzenegger has done as Governor versus what he’s said, he has had a down the line Republican economic agenda. He’s borrowed massively against our future after promising to tear up the credit card. By next year, the state of California will pay more to retire its deficit borrowing in that year alone than it spends on the entire University of California system. So he’s borrowed massively, which is going to constrain the ability to invest in things that count, like schools and transit and good jobs for our people.
He came in the recall saying he would protect education, but, like Bush who has promised to leave no child behind, he is now proposing to $15,000 out of every classroom and became the first Governor in 40 years to break the covenant with the young people of this state that said if they did their work, if they made their grades, they’d have a place at our state colleges and universities. Last year he proposed to turn away 25,000 young people who are fully eligible and fully qualified. He proposed to turn them away from our state colleges and universities in the richest state in the wealthiest nation in human history.
If you look at Schwarzenegger’s policies, they are very Bush-like: vetoing the minimum wage, siding with the Chamber of Commerce against working people at every turn. So he’s very much like George Bush, but he increasingly has the carnival barker aspects of Jesse Ventura.
The interview, which covers California’s deficit, illegal immigration issues, energy crisis and 2006 gubernatorial race, is continued here.
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