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Time and the Governor

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, AlterNet. Posted November 11, 2005.


His special election may have been a bad idea, but what really did Schwarzenegger in was time; both too much of it, and too little.

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It's hard for a politician to lose more decisively than California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did on Tuesday night. He walked into the schoolyard -- almost literally, since some of his actions were aimed specifically at the state's public education system -- and picked a fight, and then got thoroughly whipped in full view of everyone assembled. The particular fight this time was Mr. Schwarzenegger's authorization of a special, off-year election to ask voter approval of four ballot measures that his own staff had authored.

The centerpiece of the governor's efforts -- a state constitutional amendment that would have given him enhanced powers over the state budget -- did not even get 40 percent of the vote, and a proposal to take drawing of legislative district lines out of the hands of the legislature didn't do much better. His two other measures-increasing state powers over public teacher tenure and curbing the ability of unions to contribute to political campaigns-hovered around 45 percent approval. It was a massive, resounding political defeat for a man who had blown away the field only two years ago to win the governership in a special recall election.

Within moments after Mr. Schwarzenegger made his concession speech at a Beverly Hills hotel on Tuesday night, political observers were calling this a self-inflicted wound, accusing the governor and his advisors of hubris, overreaching in an attempt to stuff their mouths with political power. An opponent, Democratic State Senate leader Don Perata, put it about as succinctly as you could. "He got a lot of really bad advice," Mr. Perata remarked, a little drily, advancing the prevailing political wisdom that calling the special election had been a "bad idea," to quote one of Mr. Schwarzenegger's more famous movie quips.

Respectfully, I'm going to have to disagree with the prevailing political wisdom. What did Mr. Schwarzenegger in was time. And in a truly Einsteinian twist, the governor was plagued both by too much of it, and too little, simultaneously.

Regarding the issue of too much time

Movie actors at the upper levels of box office stardom -- as Mr. Schwarzenegger once was -- operate on a public exposure schedule that roughly coincides with their movie releases. Except for teaser appearances here and there, such stars virtually disappear from public view for months while they are preparing for and filming their newest feature. Then, in the weeks immediately preceding that movie's release, they are suddenly everywhere: on bus billboards and television commercials, on Oprah, on Larry King and Leno and everything in between, interviewing up to their eyeballs. You can't get rid of them. The idea is to overwhelm the public, saturate us with their presence, make us believe that YOU HAVE JUST GOT TO GO SEE THAT MOVIE, OR YOU ARE GOING TO JUST DIE! These campaigns are all exquisitely timed to peak right at opening weekend. After that, except for the occasional carefully scripted promotional appearance or red carpet stroll, the stars disappear again until the next movie comes up, beginning the cycle anew.

Mr. Schwarzenegger proved an absolute genius in this format and if his movies were not critical successes, they certainly performed magnificently at the box office. And because of the shortened time span of the 2003 California gubernatorial recall race, he was initially able to translate the winning formula to that arena as well, overwhelming the state's voting public with a clever combination of star power and clever quips that translated into interesting sound bites.

What those tactics masked was that over the long haul -- when you listen to more than three minutes of one of his speeches or see him on the news more than a couple of nights in a row -- Mr. Schwarzenegger tends to grate on your nerves.

This is not ideological. Eventually, Ronald Reagan's sunny personality and self-deprecating humor wore away much of the grumpiness of his Democratic and progressive opponents, even while they continued to blast away at his positions and policies. Mr. Schwarzenegger does just the opposite. The more you see of him, the more he gives you to fuel your anger against him, until you begin to forget what made you mad in the first place, and just know that you are mad. It's like the worst of marriages.

But it was the very boastful, World Wrestling Federation-type persona that made Mr. Schwarzenegger such a hit as first a body building personality and then a movie star that got him into trouble as a politician. He began his body building career baiting the shy and stuttering Lou Ferragamo and carried those activities into his action figure movie roles. His fans loved it when his robot character blew away the bad guys in Terminator 2 with the deadpan line "Hasta la vista, baby," or, in the midst of kicking Bill Duke's ass in Commando, declaring "I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now I'm very hungry." He was even able to get away with overt battery on a female, punching out movie wife Sharon Stone in Total Recall while telling her "consider this a divorce." Audiences went for it because, like Jessica Rabbit, Stone's character had been drawn to be so bad.


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J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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To begin with, Arnold lacks the brain and balls to
Posted by: maxpayne on Nov 11, 2005 5:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
work with the legislature and keep "special interest" influence down. Instead, like every other governor before him but even more so, he resorts to wasting taxpayer money and misusing "ballot initiatives" to shirk responsibility and I wonder why neither the Republicans nor Democrats in the legislature didn't even try to hold him down. Now it makes more sense why taxes are so darn high in CA. You pay taxes for the state government to use its power wisely and legislate and yet through "ballot initiatives" you're forced to do the politicians' work that you already paid them to do and in the process are also stuck with the extra high costs of "ballot initiatives" and not to mention of those who fought so hard to defeat "special interest" proposals. Yes, there are ballot initiatives in other states but not to the point of total misuse elsewhere. CA needs real discipline and some return to representative democracy.

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He was just another Nazi (self proclaimed no less) and we kicked his butt.
Posted by: Pepper on Nov 11, 2005 5:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That is why I think we might be different in the end than the German people. We might be able to overcome at least to some degree, this entire Nazi regime we have in office all over the country in all different political offices.

We are seeing the rejection now in the current elections that just took place. Everything nazi is going down. I just love it and hope it continues and we are not fooled in 2006 by anything these guys do good now since its only for reelection.

Arnold is the personification of everything that is wrong in this country and I am glad to see he was rejected out of hand and so readily. Its an encouraging sign as were the elections in NJ and Virginia. I want it to go nationwide.'

Maybe that is why that GOP memo is floating around right now in Congress calling for a terrorist attack to save their butts. It won't work. You will have to cut and paste this link to put it back together to make it work. They say its too long for this blog.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish

/printer_7639.shtml

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jefhadist
Posted by: jefhadist on Nov 11, 2005 6:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Nothing is inevitable as longs as people have the capacity to think." It would be wise to not gloat and to prepare for even bigger battles in the near term. California has tremendous challenges facing her and not many useful or realistic solutions are rising to the surface of popular consciousness. And so the tasks ahead remain daunting. Keep up!

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» RE: jefhadist Posted by: clwillett1
One minor correction....
Posted by: leftylawyer on Nov 11, 2005 8:15 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It was Lou Ferrigno, not Lou Ferragamo.

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and the cost?
Posted by: pacto on Nov 11, 2005 9:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the cost of trying to take over the state by the republicans is the most offensive.I fell the terminator should be responsible for the extra drag on Californians. isnt that what he is preaching? responsable goverment??????

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If you notice, his opponents got defeated, too.
Posted by: Sojourner on Nov 11, 2005 2:37 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Maybe Californians are finally getting wise to phony laws, where politicians and their hacks ride to victory on a slick slogan.

Elect me and I'll Fight Crime! (By writing more unenforceable laws and building more prisons where criminals can congregate and teach each other how to not get caught next time.)

Elect me and I'll Fight Drugs! (We tried that with Prohibition of Alcohol and learned that not only is it unenforceable, the cure is always worse than the disease.)

Elect me and I'll Cut Taxes! (But only for my corporate campaign checkwriters and property owners. The more property you own, the bigger your tax reduction. You peons will get larger sales, gasoline, fee, license, traffic ticket, etc. etc. increases to keep the property owners happy.)

But any state that votes to limit officeholders to two terms (thereby putting rookies in charge who then must let the big utilities and corporate lobbyists tell them what to do) deserves far worse than what we got.

But we love the election-cum-beauty-contests, and Arnie is as beautiful as they come. (Disney's Goofy could have beat Grey Davis who was too arrogant to pass the mantel down to his Lt. Governor by resigning early. I'm sure Arnie is scheduled for a Disney flick soon, right? Goofy for Governor! now that's slick)

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