Republican Flight XX The Party Re-emerges?

FT.com / World - Schwarzenegger urges Republicans to seize centre: "Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, has urged Republican presidential candidates to capture the political centre ground ahead of next year’s election by focusing on healthcare reform and education. As the campaign has unfolded, leading candidates have drifted to the right to win support from social conservatives. But in an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Schwarzenegger said the party’s candidates were “missing out on something” because televised debates had been dominated by questions about gay marriage, abortion and immigration. Mr Schwarzenegger said candidates should challenge the questions they were asked in the debates. “Someone has to say: ‘We’ve talked enough about immigration, now I want to talk about healthcare reform’.” The candidates had to “move the agenda”, he said. Shifting the debates to centre-ground topics would be a positive move, he added. “Being somewhat in the centre . . . is not a detriment. If you sell [your ideas] well and if you explain it well, that’s what leadership is all about, bringing people along.” The California governor was one of his party’s few successes in last year’s mid-term elections, winning a second term in spite"

Governor-Elect Tackles Louisiana's Image - Examiner.com: "The son of immigrants on Saturday won more than 50 percent of the vote in a primary election to make him Louisiana's first non-white governor since Reconstruction and the nation's first Indian-American chief executive. That tally averted the need for a November runoff election."