LOS ANGELES — Two of the nation’s prominent Republicans on Wednesday envisioned a future for the GOP far removed from President Donald Trump’s Twitter blasts, where inclusiveness, a kinder tone and a willingness to work with Democrats on immigration and climate change shape the agenda.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another moderate Republican and 2016 Trump rival, talked of the need for both parties to move away from political extremes to address issues ranging from disparity in education to those left behind in a jobs-rich economy.
“I’m sick of politics,” Kasich, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, said at one point at a forum in Los Angeles, eliciting a round of applause.
Knitting his fingers together repeatedly for emphasis, he said people need to work together, and he recalled President Ronald Reagan working with Democrats on Social Security.
Reagan was no doctrinaire, Kasich said, but “operated to fix things.”
In an obvious dig at Trump, Schwarzenegger said that voters were looking for answers but that the party “is giving them Twitter fights instead.” The president’s name, however, came up only sparingly Wednesday.
“We can’t be afraid to talk about health care,” Schwarzenegger said. “We can’t be afraid to talk about the environment.”
Their remarks came at an event organized by New Way California, a political committee eager to reshape the California GOP, which has been shedding voters for years. Republicans have become largely irrelevant in California government, where Democrats control every statewide office and dominate the Legislature.
The effort to move the state party in a different direction comes at a time when Trump is the dominant figure in national Republican politics, and conservatives hold sway in Washington. Since Trump’s election, California has emerged as a vanguard in the so-called Trump resistance, and Democratic state Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed nearly 30 lawsuits to block administration proposals.
New Way California was formed by Republican state lawmaker Chad Mayes, who was ousted as the party’s Assembly leader after he worked with Democrats on climate change legislation.
Mayes, a conservative, said the group hoped to “shed the stereotype of an intolerant Republican Party that serves only the rich and big businesses.”
