RUDY AND THE STRONGMAN BRING MUSCLE TO GOP By DEBORAH ORIN
IT'S the Terminator wing of the Republican Party and it's growing.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani are now the nation's top Republican stars, after President Bush.
They're both pro-choice, pro-gun control and pro-gay rights, but what they really share is a take-charge, optimistic belief that scary problems - street crime, terrorism, economic messes - can be fought and defeated.
Rudy and Arnold are the Republican foothold in the nation's two biggest Democratic states and the synergy between them could shift national politics in a fundamental way.
Both strongly back Bush and the Iraq war, sharing his belief that it made America safer.
They're tolerant on social issues - happily married although their personal lives will never pass the Puritan test - and that could make it much harder for Democrats to keep painting Republicans as sanctimonious prudes.
To put it another way, the Arnold-Rudy Republicans don't want to go snooping in other people's bedrooms. They want to help people feel safe in their own bedrooms.
And their success as post-9/11 Republicans shows how security issues have come to trump everything else and unite the GOP. That's the real reason why Schwarzenegger's victory spells trouble for Democrats.
The Democratic spin out of California is that somehow Arnold's win is good news for Dems and bad news for Bush because it can be read as a kick-out-the-bums message.
Yeah, right. Every Democrat, starting with Bill Clinton, flew out to California in a futile bid to beat Schwarzenegger because they really wanted him to win by a landslide.
Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean claimed Arnold's victory was really a rebellion against "George Bush's massive tax cuts." Oh really? That sure was a quick flip-flop.
On election eve, Dean e-mailed his California fans to oppose Arnold, telling them that a Terminator win "would make it significantly more difficult for the Democrats to win California in the 2004 presidential election."
Arnold ran on an upbeat message that California can fight back and come back. Dem spinners predict that will backfire when Arnold fails to fix California's problems and voters turn on him.
Maybe. But don't bet on it.