But I got my first pleasant surprise the day after the election: Arnold not only won the recall, but he out-polled Gray Davis,and received more than 50% of the total vote. This reduced my fears of partisan paralysis in the aftermath of a bitter recall campaign. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the clear choice of a majority of Californians. Rather than merely winning a plurality of votes in an election whose rules were stacked against the incumbent, Arnold won election fair and square.
Since little was known about how Arnold Schwarzenegger would actually govern California, beyond what he had promised in the campaign, I was still concerned that he might prove ineffective as Governor, either through inexperience or through inability to compromise with the majority party in the Assembly and Senate. The last five-plus months of his administration have completely laid my fears to rest in this regard. Using his popularity, as evidenced by his impressive election victory, and by the response of crowds at his frequent pubic appearances, and also, I am sure, by polling and letter counting, Schwarzenegger has taken his policies directly to the people, cowing legislators of both parties into going along with sensible and practical approaches to the crises facing California. He has racked up a string of notable political victories, and proven along the way that he is a sophisticated horse-trader, compromising where he needed to in order to get his initiatives accepted.
All of this would not have reassured me at all if he were pursuing a radical right-wing agenda, but that clearly isn't the case. The fact that Schwarzenegger was a political moderate was about all you could tell about him before the election. Since then, he has proven that he has the ability to get his moderate, practical agenda enacted in a Capitol dominated by idealogues of many stripes.
Arnold seems to be in a hurry to deal with the fiscal crisis and all the others facing the state. I can think of two reasons why this might be so. First, his unconventional approach to politics may become less effective over time, as he starts to build up a history with the "stake holders" in State government. If compromises entered into today don't work out as planned for this or that powerful group, as at least some inevitably must, anger could build resistence to his initiatives in the future. Second, there's that promise to not seek a second term. With any other politician, I wouldn't give such a pledge any weight. But I have proved to be a poor predictor of how things would work out for Schwarzenegger, or of how he might act. Slipping back into cynicism for a moment, there's also the fact that, though the Presidency is barred to Arnold by the constitution, there's still the House or the Senate. But it's also possible his only ambition is to clean up the mess in State government, and then return to Hollywood.
That would be remarkable, but no less so than Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance so far. "Who woulda thunk it?" I certainly didn't. And I'm surprised and pleased that I got it wrong.
Posted by hbo at May 16, 2004 02:51 PM