Writes Michael Barone in U.S. News & World Report, "As a Republican who supports abortion and gay rights, [Schwarzenegger] might have trouble in a Republican primary." But, of course, there is no Republican primary in California's gubernatorial recall free-for-all, which cramps the power for the "wingnuts" of the right (though that hasn't stopped arch anti-gay Lou Sheldon from claiming that a Schwarzenegger Candidacy Would ''Terminate'' Moral Leadership In California ).
On the contrary, Barone argues that a Schwarzenegger victory could save California's GOP. "Republicans have become a minority in California because of their conservative stands on cultural issues and because they have turned off Latinos," he writes. "Schwarzenegger, who would be eligible to run again in 2006 and 2010, gives them a different image."
Gay syndicated columnist Rex Wockner
reports
that:
in an October 1999 interview with Talk magazine Schwarzenegger said that the Republicans have to become a party of inclusion and show they "love the foreigner"as much as the gay person and lesbian person."
But most gay activists are sticking with incumbent Democrat Gray
Davis, who never met a special interest spending bill he didn't
like. And then there's this bit of ridiculousness being brought up.
Back in
1992, Schwarzenegger
said: "We don't talk about those Democrats. I watched that
debate and they all looked like a bunch of girlie men." Which led
the far lefties of Queer Nation to denounce him as a "bigot" and a
"blatant homophobe," and charge that his attitude underscored "the
anti-gay agenda of the Bush/Quayle campaign."
Actually, you'd have thought The Terminator had called for extermination camps, given QN's charge that "Once again, Bush's henchmen divide the nation by promoting hatred of a minority -- the queer community"It sickens me to see the president of the United States endorse homophobia and advocate anti-gay violence," in the words of the group's then spokesqueer.
Despite the angst of the lesbigay left, then and now, a
gay-welcoming GOP governor for California who gives the anti-gay
right stomach pains would be a very fine thing indeed.