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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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September 27, 2003

Republican Party directors call emergency meeting

The California Republican Party has scheduled an emergency board of directors meeting for Monday at 1 p.m. in Burbank to consider endorsing a candidate in the recall replacement election. It's clear that at least some of the directors want the party to go on record endorsing Arnold. Once again, this bullying of McClintock strikes me as futile. Unless he has sent a signal that he would withdraw if the pary directors endorse Arnold, I don't see how this will change anything, other than to give McClintock one more "backroom deal" to rail against and give his supporters one more reason to consider him a hero. Then again, with Arnold and Cruz running neck-and-neck, if Arnold can somehow take half or more of the 15 percent to 18 percent now backing McClintock, it might provide the margin of victory. I'm just not a fan of political parties, especially when they act this way, so I have a natural adverse reaction to this sort of thing. I still think Arnold gets those votes anyway on Election Day, but doing it this way further polarizes the race and makes it tougher for him to win crossover and independent votes.