Governor plans local visit

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger swings through Orange County this week, he’ll be eating, drinking, and explaining his campaign strategy to a potentially fertile field of donors.

Today, Schwarzenegger’s having lunch with the New Majority in Newport Beach, and Wednesday evening it’s cocktails in Costa Mesa with the Orange County chapter of the Lincoln Club.

Some Republicans have ripped the governor for allowing a bloated budget, appointing a Democrat as chief of staff and otherwise alienating some party voters, but he likely won’t face many harsh accusations from the lunch and cocktail crowds.

The Orange County-based New Majority has been a major financial supporter of the governor. Tom Tucker, the group’s founding chairman, estimated the New Majority and its members have raised close to $10 million for Schwarzenegger and his various initiatives.

The governor seems to have overcome most of the reservations the two donor groups had. They’ve been largely won over by Susan Kennedy, the chief of staff whose past as a staffer for former Gov. Gray Davis raised Republican blood pressures, and they liked the initiatives from the November 2005 special election, though all failed with voters.

In fact, Lincoln Club President Richard Wagner said he’s concerned that Schwarzenegger capitulated too easily after the initiatives failed.

“So we lost, but he made the other side have to spend a lot of money, and he exposed that they’re truly desperate to maintain the gravy train, and I don’t think that’s bad,” Wagner said.

Overall, the two groups are satisfied with Schwarzenegger’s performance in his first term, but they will question the governor closely about the multi-billion dollar infrastructure bond issue he’s proposing and his appointment of non-Republican judges.

“Our conservative Republicans would look at any Democratic judge and immediately be unhappy because they assume it’s going to be a liberal judge if he’s a Democrat,” said Dale Dykema, who belongs to the Lincoln Club and the New Majority.

This week’s event will be the governor’s first meeting with the Lincoln Club, so there will be a fair amount of hand shaking and picture taking. The New Majority will want to hear about Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign, but members should offer a supportive audience.

“There’s no great rift at all,” Tucker said. “Clearly we’re stakeholders in his campaign.”

Not all Republicans feel tied to the stakes of Schwarzenegger’s success -- but the nay-sayers aren’t likely to be the ones eating steaks with him this week. Michael Schroeder, former chairman of the state GOP and a past president of the California Republican Assembly, has come out against the four major initiatives the governor is now backing, and he even took a stab at getting the state party to withdraw its endorsement of Schwarzenegger. He doesn’t belong to either group meeting with the governor this week.

Schroeder believes Schwarzenegger has alienated the party’s base in four areas: appointment of liberal judges “who won’t enforce the death penalty;” worsening the budget problem with more spending; backing a major bond issue that would create even more debt; and supporting a minimum wage hike that would be bad for business.

The governor is out of step with Republican voters, and to address that he’ll need to meet with grass-roots conservative activists rather than wealthy donors, Schroeder said.

“The donor community, while important, is not the Republican party. You still have the rank and file of voters, who are middle class people and people of modest means,” Schroeder said.

“He needs to come up with enough conservative positions so that the Republican base cares whether he gets elected or not. Right now they’re having trouble caring.”

Neither event this week is officially a fundraiser, but both could smooth the path for future giving.

Dykema said it will be a little tougher for the governor to raise reelection money in Orange County, since donors supported the recall and the initiatives in the 2005 special election.

“This is the third time in going to the well, so to speak,” he said.

“The ones that will be less forthcoming will be the real conservatives, but they’re not generally the big givers anyhow, so I think he’s going to be able to raise the money necessary to be able to run a credible race.”

After all, Republicans generally don’t want to see a Democrat win and no one else in the party can match Schwarzenegger’s star power, so where else can they turn?

“I think in the end the Lincoln Club will endorse the Governor. There’s nobody else running,” Wagner said, laughing. “We certainly don’t like the alternative. ...The question is how much money will we be able to raise for him.”