The California Conversions of Republicans Campaigning in the Golden State

(If the deceased had been someone like porn publisher Larry Flynt, Falwell, who described the Sept. 11 attacks as God's punishment for America's tolerance of "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians," might have ascribed it to a higher power).

Still, Falwell's passing is likely to be seen as an indicator of change. As is ever the case, the political power of the religious right depended as much on image as on substance: It had power in part because politicians believed it had power. The 2006 elections turned a growing number into un-believers.

Much of the erosion was self-inflicted: the political posturing around the Terri Schiavo case; the administration's stubborn resistance to stem cell research; the contrivance and decline of "intelligent design"; the Jim Bakker sex and financial fraud scandals of 1987-89; the Ted Haggard "sexual immorality" scandal of 2006; and the nation's rapidly changing attitudes about gay rights. The GOP's loud defeat in the elections of 2006 was not just about Iraq or about the endemic incompetence of the Bush administration.

And there was Arnold. Given the character of California's electorate and the political meltdown of the Bush presidency, there wasn't much risk for Schwarzenegger -- and a lot to be gained -- by taking on the administration and the supposed monolith of right-wing political fundamentalism.

Nonetheless Schwarzenegger, already constitutionally immunized against the constraints of a possible campaign for the presidency, was the first major GOP figure to establish a beachhead as a latter-day Republican moderate.

John McCain, in his brief incarnation as a straight talker, took on the religious right in 2000, got clobbered and now bows conspicuously at its holy temples. Last week he was among the first to issue a statement of regret on the death of Falwell, "a man of distinguished accomplishment."

Schwarzenegger, who was far and away his party's biggest winner last year, did it on a platform of major infrastructure spending, universal health care and high-glitz environmentalism. That a lot of this stuff may turn out to be more show than substance doesn't change the politics of it. Arnold ran to the left of the grumbling leaders of his party and made them like it. It came naturally to a man who knew they needed him more than he needed them.

For Giuliani, with his personal and political background, going left (again) on abortion, the paradigmatic issue for the religious right, wasn't going to lose him a lot of conservative votes that he might have won otherwise. Family values were never going to be his strong suit.

Still, his pro-choice declaration and his gay-rights and gun control background haven't kept him from gaining a comfortable lead in polls of Republican voters. That hardly means he's got it locked up. But it does raise the question of whether social issues aren't nearly as much of a defining element as they were a generation ago, even for GOP conservatives.

It also seems to reinforce the importance of a re-jiggered presidential primary calendar that gives the blue coastal states -- California, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey -- more influence in picking the 2008 nominees. If that's seen as moderating the choice of GOP nominees, Schwarzenegger will be able to claim some of the credit for that as well.

None of this should suggest that Schwarzenegger and Giuliani -- the governor of California, the former mayor of New York -- are dragging their party to the center. More probably it's that each, with his political background, has divined how the political currents are running. Once again, California, the supposed left-out coast, a place too different and freaky to represent much of anything, could turn out to be a lot better bellwether than it's lately been given credit for.

Peter Schrag is former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee. This article is published with his permission.