The playbook for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign has been clear from the outset:

• Ensure that every public appearance is scripted and stage managed in order to prevent the gaffe-prone governor from having to make off-cuff-remarks (therefore only one debate)
• Use the governor’s access to the national entertainment media to gain free publicity that is unavailable to his opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides (thus Schwarzenegger appears on Jay Leno’s show but Leno refuses to give Angelides equal time)
• Run away from the Republican Party, of which the governor is one of the most popular figureheads (so terse and challenging letters from the governor to President Bush about environmental issues and the like are regularly released to the public)

As the popularity of President Bush and the GOP continues to tank in California, we’re seeing a special emphasis from the Schwarzenegger campaign on the latter point. He’s running as hard and fast away from his party as he can:

At tightly staged events this week in San Diego, Glendale and Oakland, Schwarzenegger has all but severed his Republican ties while playing up the value of bipartisan harmony.

He has also taken pains to widen his appeal beyond white Republican men, his most loyal supporters. At every stop, Schwarzenegger has surrounded himself with African Americans or Latinos and stuck to themes that resonate with Democrats, independents and women: the environment and education.

Hey, using black people as props certainly worked for then-candidate Bush in 2000. At the GOP convention that year, the stage was jammed with brown faces looking out on a sea of white faces on the convention floor. Americans fell for that in 2000, and it appears that Californians are falling for it 2006 as well.

The governor has been off the rightwing media radar but is planning at least one foray:

In what has become a rare nod to a conservative base that he once tended to assiduously, Schwarzenegger plans to appear Friday on “Hannity & Colmes,” a Fox News television show to be taped on the Midway, the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum.

But that is an exception. For months, the governor has kept a distance from his party, a move seen as a strategic necessity in a state where just a little more than a third of registered voters are Republican. He has avoided public events with other GOP candidates and refused to endorse the party’s staunchly conservative U.S. Senate nominee, former state Sen. Dick Mountjoy of Monrovia. And in an interview last week, Schwarzenegger sidestepped the question of how much he cares whether Republicans win other statewide races.

This distancing from his party is especially ironic since Gov. Schwarzenegger’s campaign team is comprised of former Bush White House political operatives. It is also a dodge. Everyone knows that as soon as he is ensconced in Sacramento for his first full four-year term, he’ll revert to his old ways: Handing the state’s resources over to its financial elite.