California Insider

A Weblog by
Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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September 24, 2003

Arnold and the Indians

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t letting up on the Indian gaming issue. He is hitting harder. Perhaps he realizes that this is not the kind of fight in which you can engage halfway. Once he decided to take them on, he opened himself to a potentially massive counterattack from the gaming tribes, and so now he must go all the way. Today his campaign released a new radio commercial in which an announcer cites the casino tribes as the most powerful special interest in California and notes that they have spent $120 million in the past five years. The ad cites a Sacramento Bee report about a closed-door meeting with the gaming interests where Davis, Bustamante and McClintock “all made promises” to them. It cites an LA Times story on the amount the tribes have given to each of the campaigns. “Only one major candidate doesn’t take their money,” the announcer says. “Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Cut to Arnold:

“Their casinos make billions, yet pay no taxes and virtually nothing to the state. Other states require revenue from Indian gaming, but not us. It’s time for them to pay their fair share. All the other major candidates take their money and pander to them. I don’t play that game.”

The ad is similar to the television commercial Schwarzenegger started running this week but adds the names of his opponents and the details about their relationships with the tribes – no small alteration. Schwarzenegger seems to think he has found the issue to make his “special interest” charge real to the voters, to solidify his position as the only viable outsider who can bring change to Sacramento, even as he has surrounded himself with some of the Capitol’s most experienced insiders. He just might end up making special interest money the number 1 topic for the rest of the campaign.