Arnold figures it out: GOP 'dying at the box office'

Schwarzenegger warns against weakening the party with a bunker mentality so that its only remaining power is to say 'no.'
By Evan Halper and Scott Martelle
Los Angeles Times

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a warning to his fellow California Republicans on Friday: Their party is doomed if it does not move to the political center.

In a speech before 1,200 delegates to a semiannual state party convention, Schwarzenegger said the group's failure to reach out to independent and moderate voters -- and embrace politicians who, like him, govern from the middle -- is causing membership to plummet.

"In movie terms, . . . we are dying at the box office," he said. "We are not filling the seats."

The speech, which drew a mixed response, comes at a time of strained relations between the governor and the conservative activists who control the party. Schwarzenegger's policies on the environment, healthcare and state spending have led some party leaders to call him a Democrat masquerading as a Republican.

Yet in welcoming Schwarzenegger, party Chairman Ron Nehring described him as "the single greatest asset of the California Republican Party." Anticipating the speech to come, Nehring said the governor had been "bold" in taking the lead on healthcare and the environment -- traditionally Democratic issues.

Schwarzenegger, armed with poll numbers and invoking the names of "pragmatic conservatives" Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt, told a nearly full ballroom at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa that on the issues, most Republican voters agree with him -- not party activists.

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