|
Schwarzenegger skipped fathers funeral { July 13 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/13/MN223272.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/13/MN223272.DTL
Schwarzenegger's new role
Actor with colorful background may try to 'terminate' governor
Robert Salladay, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
Sacramento -- He posed for nude photos. He skipped his father's funeral to attend a bodybuilding competition. He smoked pot. He killed nearly 300 people on film. Not to mention the alleged boorish behavior with women.
Who could be a better candidate for California governor?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, by most accounts charming and smart and politically astute, is sending chills through the Sacramento and Washington establishment as he toys with the idea of trying to oust Gov. Gray Davis in a recall. He is the great "What If."
His strategy is proving, so far, a flawless example of how to build momentum. For Schwarzenegger, the undisputed master of Hollywood public relations, that was the easy part.
The next, more critical, stage is convincing voters that a not-very- versatile actor with a thick German accent and a tabloid past can govern California.
Some political analysts think this may be the ripest time for Schwarzenegger, 55, because he can position himself as the antidote to the establishment -- namely, Davis, the "best-trained governor" in state history --
while simultaneously embracing the system itself and promising to fix it. He's on two tracks, both toward Sacramento.
He sponsored a successful ballot initiative on after-school funding last year. He schmoozes with state politicians. He hired a veteran political consultant close to former Gov. Pete Wilson.
He's embraced the Republican establishment, but he also has ridiculed Davis,
compared California to postwar Iraq, and positioned himself as a businessman and philanthropist -- against the current system.
Nobody can quite figure out whether Schwarzenegger is promoting his new, $170 million movie, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," or is serious about running in a recall election.
His political advisers say he simply hasn't decided and must weigh the spotlight that will shine on his family. Recently, after a new poll showed him fairly unpopular as a candidate, the Capitol buzz was that he won't run.
PUBLIC OFFICE DESIRED
But film producer and director George Butler, Schwarzenegger's friend since the 1970s, said public office has been inevitable for the actor since he "landed in America in 1968 at Kennedy Airport with a master plan. That master plan was modest enough: to take over America."
"I've talked with George Bush's top Republican strategists, and they just say he doesn't stand a chance," Butler said in an interview. "All I would say to them is they don't know Arnold. You can never underestimate him."
Butler, who first captured Schwarzenegger in the documentary "Pumping Iron" and wrote a biography of him, said the actor comes into the political world with establishment credentials already -- those of his journalist wife, Kennedy clan-member Maria Shriver, and his business and Hollywood successes.
"He's been electing himself to public office ever since he got into the movies," Butler said. "There is a remarkable similarity to running a movie campaign and a political campaign. You are getting people to do something, to go out and spend money for you. Votes are like movie tickets."
If Schwarzenegger does run for governor -- he's been hinting at it for about a decade -- his campaign could be a reverse of the one Davis orchestrated in the past two elections. Davis positioned himself as boring, someone who took charisma lessons from Al Gore, the most experienced man in state politics. Schwarzenegger couldn't be more different.
Like former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who starred with Schwarzenegger in the movie "Predator," Schwarzenegger could mobilize a class of voters disgusted with the system, this time angry about the $38 billion budget deficit and the energy crisis, or whatever else they think is wrong.
"People are very cynical about career politicians," said Darrell West, author of "Celebrity Politics" and a Brown University political science professor. "They see them as a bunch of deal-cutters who don't have principles.
And they can see celebrities as white knights that are unfettered by the political process."
PUBLIC DISILLUSIONED
Schwarzenegger's chief political adviser, George Gorton, thinks the current political environment favors his client because the public is so disgusted with the establishment.
"People are saying, 'Look where experience got us. It destroyed the state,' " Gorton said. "They are looking for people who don't swim in the same swamp, as (former Attorney General) John Van de Kamp used to say. Arnold's experience fits the public's desire and the state's needs to a T."
Asked whether Schwarzenegger could handle some of the more mundane, detailed work of being governor, he added that Schwarzenegger already has run a business, real estate and movie empire, but that "we need people who can make major changes, delegate the mundane things, and deal with the big problems in this state. That is Arnold, taking on the big things."
Judging by the early polling numbers, Schwarzenegger will have to work at convincing voters. Despite recall-related media coverage dominated with news about him and despite rock-bottom opinion about Davis, a recent Los Angeles Times poll found 53 percent of voters were "not inclined" to vote for the actor.
More people liked former Los Angeles Mayor Dick Riordan, who is considering a run on the recall ballot, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is not.
Enthusiasm for a Schwarzenegger campaign is matched by an equal belief by Democrats that his past -- and the simple fact that he acts in cartoonishly violent movies -- could sink him. The Kennedys are a well-known target of the media, and he's a Kennedy.
DIGGING INTO PAST
Tabloid newspapers have begun digging into Schwarzenegger's past, a source close to the recall said, and they already have a trove of material from unauthorized biographies and Schwarzenegger's own outrageous statements in the past.
In a 2001 article in Premiere magazine titled "Arnold the Barbarian," Schwarzenegger is alleged to have been a "serial groper" who cheated on his wife while he was on movie sets. Schwarzenegger denies it, and several female co-stars have defended him.
Nude photos of a Schwarzenegger posing as a young man are available on the Internet. He has admitted that he "inhaled" and is seen in "Pumping Iron" smoking what appears to be pot while lounging on a couch eating some cake.
In the same documentary, Schwarzenegger casually explains that he refused to attend the Austrian funeral of his father because he had a bodybuilding competition.
Then there is his mouth. In a recent Esquire magazine, which dubbed him the next California governor, Schwarzenegger said bodybuilders often are stereotyped, much like "a blond" with great physical features, although he used crude terms. "You say to yourself, 'Hey, she must be stupid or must have nothing else to offer,' which maybe is the case many times," he opined.
Gorton, his political adviser, dismissed many of the stories as unattributed gossip that will undoubtedly continue as part of Hollywood life. In a recent Esquire interview, Schwarzenegger himself said: "Don't cry for me. If I couldn't take it, I wouldn't get in."
But Davis confidante and political consultant Garry South thinks Schwarzenegger has no idea what he's in for.
"He would have to be a complete fool to believe that if he gets into this, all he gets is the same coverage as everyone else," South said. "It will be ratcheted up geometrically to almost a feeding frenzy of coverage that I believe will not put him in a particularly good light."
MOVING TO THE CENTER
On the political front, however, Schwarzenegger's path has been carefully worked to show him as middle-of-the-road -- the kind of candidate who would have difficulty winning a Republican primary but easier chance on a straight statewide ballot -- like in a recall election. He's said to support abortion rights, gun control and gay rights -- values that could appeal to a larger range of voters.
Drawing from the playbook of former Gov. Wilson, he last year introduced Proposition 49, which funds after-school programs, and then promised to inaugurate the new law in visits around the state. He has consulted with Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte and appears to have talked with countless other local and state officials simply about state politics.
With all of this, and despite his past, Schwarzenegger has positioned himself nicely to run for political office, said West, the political science professor and author.
"The most important thing for a celebrity is to be able to pass the credibility test, that they are not just a pretty face who doesn't know anything, but that they can talk about public policy," West said. "It doesn't mean they have to be a policy wonk, but they have to demonstrate enough knowledge that people trust them with a very serious responsibility. It looks to me like he has done that."
E-mail Robert Salladay at rsalladay@sfchronicle.com.
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
Page A - 1
|
|
