I will just work with both parties, I will serve you, I will be a public servant, not a politician. And I will not look at it in a political way as a Republican. I know I can do that, and I will work my butt off for you.
It was literally just me - being able to connect with the people and to have big rallies. No one knew who Bustamante was then, and nobody knows who he is today. Was it a real threat to have an elected official from the other party? Cruz Bustamante made the move to get on the ballot to stop you. It’s the same in a UFC fight: Who is the one who can take the best punch, and give the best punch? That’s what happens in political campaigns, but you can’t take it seriously, because that’s what you do. What is it someone has to say when he wants to keep his job? He is going to paint the other side in a horrible way. But I mean it’s exactly the same thing they said me, it was the same dialogue.
I just said that,, the surgeons have been doing surgery for years, and they’ve killed every patient.Īre you concerned about the Democrats’ argument that there is a far right element to this recall - people who have talked about extreme things like microchipping undocumented immigrants, etc.? They said, “This would be the worst thing you can do,” that “Let’s think of it as a heart surgeon, would you want to have a heart surgery from someone that has never performed heart surgery?” They brought out my good friend, John Kerry. But didn’t Democrats work hard to attack you - as they’re doing now to attack recall backers? the people’s way of kind of letting off some steam, and then they decide: Do we want to follow through, or not follow through? It had nothing to do then - and it has nothing to do today - with either party. The Republicans are going to claim the Democrats are terrible, and then the Democrats are going to come in and they say, ”It’s a power grab,” which of course I heard a million times in 2003. The political parties will make it right away about them. These are the signatures of the ordinary folks that have signed on.īut isn’t the recall a struggle between the two major political parties? It’s ludicrous - the Republican Party doesn’t exist. Let me tell you, the Republicans couldn’t even get anyone elected. This is the crazy thing here, when they say it’s a “power grab” of the Republicans. The Republican party is, like I have said, dying at the box office. Newsom’s team says it’s a “Republican recall” and an effort to overthrow a Democratic governor - is that how you see it? With us, it was the power outages in 2003. In Newsom’s case, it was the French Laundry thing. Something that sets it off to a higher level, kind of the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s the same vibe.Īnd it’s the same with the momentum. They’re failing us every day.” That’s what I see as the similarities from 2003.
And you feel like, “Wait a minute, but Sacramento doesn’t really do everything for us that they promised they’ll do. It’s very tough to raise kids and to have a family, and to go through this challenge, working to make ends meet. People are making unbelievable sacrifices every day. There was dissatisfaction, to the highest level. It’s pretty much the same atmosphere today as it was then.
Here are some excerpts from that conversation, edited for length and clarity:ĭo the 2003 California recall that brought you to power and the current recall against Gavin Newsom have anything in common? In his first-ever interview on this year’s California recall drive, which is expected to be certified soon, the Republican former governor tells POLITICO that the same voter frustration and yearning for effective leadership and post-partisan cooperation are still clearly at play in the nation’s most populous state - and offers Newsom some advice on what may lie ahead. “There was dissatisfaction, to the highest level. “It’s pretty much the same atmosphere today as it was then,” Schwarzenegger, the 38th governor of California, said in an interview this week. But Schwarzenegger, 73, warns that there are plenty of similarities between California’s history-making populist movements nearly two decades apart, and that elected officials ignored them at their peril.
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