Governor to Put His Money Down
Unusual gesture to potential big donors also will buy TV ads for special election.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's received a rash of criticism for trying to raise the $50 million he says he needs for his special election campaign, will soon contribute several million dollars of his own money to the cause.
Schwarzenegger, who has told his aides that the personal contribution is a gesture to potential big donors that he's fully committed to his ballot initiatives, needs the cash so he can start a television ad blitz in the next week or two.
"It shows people the governor is totally committed to these reforms and that he's willing to put his own money in to help make them happen," Mike Murphy, his chief political strategist, said Thursday.
"We're having no trouble raising money. This is just his way of reinforcing the idea that he's in partnership with the voters and not asking people to do it all themselves."
Schwarzenegger's initiative committee reported nearly $1.7 million in donations the past three weeks. And the effort is expected to get a boost with his announcement today that he'll seek re-election next year.
But his campaign has also spent more than $20 million just to qualify his ballot measures - all of which are trailing in the polls - and Schwarzenegger needs all the money he can raise to compete against well-heeled public employee labor unions that oppose him.
He'll contribute the money in several stages, members of his political team said, with the first check coming sometime within the next week. An exact amount has not been determined, three members of his political staff said, but it could be on the order of the $4.5 million he put into his campaign for governor in 2006.
The timing of his latest financial move would fit into his current game plan of jump-starting his special election campaign this week with purely political appearances up and down the state. On Saturday, one day after announcing his 2006 plans, he'll make the keynote speech at the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim.
"Arnold needs to do something to energize the grassroots, the people who will knock on doors, make phone calls and do all that important campaign work," said Allen Hoffenblum, a Republican political consultant in Los Angeles.
"I understand political donors. There's a lot of disillusionment going on right now because Arnold's (poll) numbers are falling. (President) Bush's numbers are down. You had Katrina. Republican donors are a little numb right now. He needs to rile them up. Announcing his plans to run, going to the convention Saturday and this - putting his own money in the special election - is bound to give everyone a big psychological boost."
Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, called Schwarzenegger's move "unprecedented."
"Of course, we've never had a governor with this kind of wealth before," Stern said. "But I'm surprised he thinks he has to do that. It does show his personal commitment, though, to say, 'Look, I've put my money where my mouth is, and I guess you should, too.' It's a very interesting move."
When Schwarzenegger writes the check, it will mark the first time the Republican governor has put any of his personal wealth into his political campaigns since he loaned the $4.5 million to his original campaign committee during the gubernatorial recall. When he's pushed for other ballot initiatives, he enjoyed more bipartisan support than he does currently, so he was able to raise money from a broader array of sources.
That 2003 move backfired to some degree when a Sacramento judge ruled that Schwarzenegger probably violated state election law when he borrowed the money from a bank and then loaned it to his campaign. Candidates can loan their personal candidate campaigns only $100,000 under state law, so Schwarzenegger had no choice but to treat the money as a contribution, meaning there was no way to reimburse himself.
The judge's ruling cost him $4.5 million, but Schwarzenegger called the decision "fantastic." He said he always intended to cover the loan out of his own pocket, even though aides said for months that he was considering asking contributors to help him retire the loan.
Schwarzenegger is backing three measures on the ballot in November in a special election he called as part of his "Year for Reform." The measures seek to limit state spending, make it more difficult for teachers to get tenure protections and shift the task of drawing political boundaries from the Legislature to a panel of judges.