Juan Arambula: A Man With Whom Republicans Need to Talk
While the percentage of Americans identifying as Democrats has been in steady decline since President Obama’s inauguration, the number of Republicans has remained virtually unchanged. To be sure, there has been a substantial increase in Republican-leaning independents (and a considerable decrease in Democratic-leaning independents).
The trend lines for the GOP among independents provide a sign of hope for the party, but not yet where they need to be if the party wants to recapture the congressional majority next year (which, I believe, remains within the realm of possibility). The key issue for Republicans, as shown in that Gallup poll cited above, is why those independents leaning to the GOP have not yet declared themselves Republicans. (Maybe it’s only a question of time. Maybe it’s ideas.
And we need figure out how we can get those Democrats leaving their party to join the GOP.
They should start by sitting down with California Assemblyman John Arambula (I-Fresno). Initially elected as a Democrat, Arambula, “the son of migrant farmworkers,” had been a thorn in the side of party leaders. In 2006, “then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez ordered Arambula to move into the Assembly’s ‘doghouse,’ a shoe-box-sized Capitol office often reserved for lawmakers in disfavor with their party’s leader.“
He has been most at odds with his former party over budget issues, refusing to vote for additional revenues until legislators “had done everything we can to reduce (state government) costs.” He has also faulted Democratic legislators for having to run everything by public employee unions. Like a certain successful Democratic presidential candidate, he’s expressed concern about the influence of special interests, but unlike that politician, he doesn’t seem to be beholden to them.
Still, he refuses to identify as a Republican. And before he retires from public service next year, Republicans need to find out why. Perhaps, it is his willingness to raise taxes should lawmakers make spending cuts. Perhaps, it’s something else.
At least in talking to him, Republicans can learn what the party needs to do to attract men like him, dissatisfied with the direction his former party has been taking.
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Probally because he is strongly pro union.
You folks don’t like that.
Of course if you change your stance on such issues, you might get some votes!
Comment by gillie — September 18, 2009 @ 12:49 pm - September 18, 2009
‘While the percentage of Americans identifying as Democrats has been in steady decline since President Obama’s inauguration, the number of Republicans has remained virtually unchanged.”
Except in the Fox poll you linked to in the previous post. Dems back at 42%, where they were in Feb. Republicans down to 31%, from 35 in early Aug.
[Um, Tano, do you know how to read polls, that's how Fox weighted the the sample, not the determination it made of the relative strength of the parties. --Dan]
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 12:51 pm - September 18, 2009
And maybe some kickbacks?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 1:08 pm - September 18, 2009
“maybe some kickbacks”
Why not! Its the liberal fringe benefit.
We all have a card + secret handshake. This gives us cheaper cigarettes, free garbage pickup and all you can eat at any OCB.
Join the Fun!
Comment by gillie — September 18, 2009 @ 1:59 pm - September 18, 2009
As someone who lives in Fresno (yes, I admit it
) I have long admired Juan’s independent spirit. He’s gone against his party many times in his long career. Yet only now has he been punished for it. The Dems that currently rule are certainly a vindictive bunch.
Another that has suffered the wrath of the nasgul is Nicole Parra, another. she got kicked out of her office for not voting with the party line on the 2008 budget.
Note why she didn’t vote for the budget…. WATER. She wanted to improve California’s water infrastructure. And this was last year. I wonder if the West Side drought as seen on Hannity yesterday would be happening if she would have made progress.
So, you ask, if water wasn’t important to the legislature, just what was?
Ah yes, our state government at work. And you wonder why California is SOOOOO ef’d up!
PS. And, in case anyone missed it, the legislature seems perfectly happy to consider waiving environmental laws when it sees fit:
In the meantime, some cities here in the Valley that rely on farming are experiencing unemployment rates of over 40% and the farming industry, a revenue generator many magnitudes greater than a stadium even with an NFL team, will suffer even further when the water behind Friant Dam is forced to be released due to environmental lawsuits, leaving even less water available for the region.
Comment by Sonicfrog — September 18, 2009 @ 2:10 pm - September 18, 2009
Oh, speaking of the Hannity show last night, look at the coverage of the event…. amazing! Google it. It’s the same spin everywhere. It might have been better to have focused on THE REASON hannity was there in the first place, but hey, what do I know. I’m just a guy who no longer watches the news. And you wonder why the news industry is dying.
Comment by Sonicfrog — September 18, 2009 @ 2:15 pm - September 18, 2009
Unrelated to this post: Dan, I enjoyed meeting you in Denver a Couple weeks back. I hope you’ll make it back again soon!
Comment by Alex in Denver — September 18, 2009 @ 3:17 pm - September 18, 2009
I find it hilarious that “gillie” and “Tano” pop up at exactly the same time to comment. C’mon guys…. give us a break that you aren’t the same person.
Comment by Bruce (GayPatriot) — September 18, 2009 @ 3:39 pm - September 18, 2009
Alex, thanks for the good word; I enjoyed meeting you as well.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — September 18, 2009 @ 4:28 pm - September 18, 2009
Bruce,
This is the second time in a few days you have made what seems to be a very dishonest charge. I say dishonest because (and please correct me if I am wrong here) as the owner of this site, you surely have access to the logs – it wouldn’t take you more than 5 seconds to check IP addresses to not only see that gillie and I are not the same person, but you could probably figure out where we live as well.
So whats up with this? Are you purposely misleading your readers so as to get in a few shots, given that you have no answer to the specific issues we raise? Don’t your readers deserve better of you?
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 4:58 pm - September 18, 2009
You mean hes Mafia???
No. No we DON’T like criminals or corruption. Thats why we get rid of it while you promote it.
Yes, that enormous 12% of Americans who still are in unions.
Actually, a great many union workers DO vote Republican. Its just the corrupt/criminal leadership that is devoutly Democrat.
Comment by American Elephant — September 18, 2009 @ 6:00 pm - September 18, 2009
He sounds like the person who should be President…. he has the right stuff…..
Comment by thestraightaussie — September 18, 2009 @ 6:19 pm - September 18, 2009
Hey, things have gotten so bad with the unions, even the Mafia doesn’t want anything to do with them!
Comment by Sonicfrog — September 18, 2009 @ 7:18 pm - September 18, 2009
I don’t have any issues with small local unions; I do however, have problems with large national unions.
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — September 18, 2009 @ 8:28 pm - September 18, 2009
Steven,
It’s been my personal experience that small unions are better focused than large ones, but the laws to ‘help’ unions don’t help them.
For example, with arbitration, the company can break the contract, and the employees have to comply with the broken rule, until it’s resolved in arbitration. Clear up until the day the arbitration is done, the employer can go ‘oops’ and fix the practice, no harm, no foul. Meanwhile the small union is out legal fees, time, etc.
Between things like that and the AFL/CIO’s ‘non-compete’ clause, I lost respect for the ‘big unions’ long before the SEIU became (in)famous.
Comment by The_Livewire — September 21, 2009 @ 9:46 am - September 21, 2009