- Nov 25, 2001
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Interesting article about everyone's favorite Governator and how his success may re-tool politics as we know it. For the record, I started out intensely disliking Arnold's election -- primarily because of the way he came to power. I thought it was sneaky and underhanded the way the recall effort exploited CA's political system. Nowadays, I have a new-found respect for Arnold and feel he's doing a pretty damned good job.
The New American Idol
Politics as usual? Hasta la vista, baby. The radical center has flexed its muscle in California, short-circuiting the parties and going direct to the people. Now it could sweep the nation.
It's easy to dismiss Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as a fluke, an "only in California" political anomaly fully explained by the words movie star and recall. After all, he wouldn't be governor if he weren't famous, rich, and married into political nobility. And even all that might not have been enough in a regular election; he benefited mightily from California's constitution encouraging voter temper tantrums, which in this case led to a lightning-fast campaign too short to dole out the usual damage. All in all, a rare combination of qualities and circumstances - and hardly the stuff of a national trend.
But a funny thing happened on the way to California once again being the butt of late-night TV jokes: Schwarzenegger has turned out to be a surprisingly effective governor. He's eased (though not broken) the political logjam in Sacramento, navigated ably through the biggest state deficit ever, and established himself as a potent force on the national political stage. His popularity rating among California voters hovered through summer in the 60s, near the all-time highs for a Golden State governor and more than 40 points above the end-of-term numbers for the man he replaced, Gray Davis.
Part of Schwarzenegger's appeal lies in his status as an outsider. He arrived in Sacramento without the usual baggage of a career in politics. Thanks to his wealth and charisma, he didn't have to do deals to get into office, making him free to act independently once he got there. And free to think independently, too: His moderate views - socially liberal, economically conservative - position him to the left of Republicans and to the right of Democrats.
We've seen this before: Ross Perot had Arnold's money and connections; Jesse Ventura had celebrity populism. Neither sparked a revolution. But two things are different this time. The first is that this is California, the fifth-largest economy in the world and the political launchpad that produced the Reagan revolution. The second is that it's getting easier to follow Arnold's example: The political barriers to entry are dropping across the country, even for candidates who happen not to be rich action heroes trained to shrug off chains.
Every day there are more and more ways to get elected without relying on traditional party machinery and big-money campaign politics. The Internet-driven grassroots tactics of Howard Dean, Meetup, and MoveOn are changing the game by democratizing fundraising, outreach, and advertising (see "Weapons of Mass Mobilization"). These techniques resonate with a generation disaffected by conventional politics. And they give candidates powerful tools to reach voters directly, allowing them to take on issues that too often are neglected by political parties desperate to placate powerful special interests.
As more politicians adopt these outsider tactics (see "The Dean Machine Marches On"), they'll arrive in office less compromised and more open to fresh thinking, just like California's new governor. It is an opportunity both for moderates like Schwarzenegger and for groups that have been increasingly excluded from the narrowly micromanaged political positioning of the two major parties. And most important, it could lead to more effective elected officials. The Schwarzenegger phenomenon may have started as a joke, but it has become a fascinating case study in the power of routing around politics as usual.
What IS the Schwarzenegger model? First, he's a political hybrid who can't easily be labeled, categorized, or dismissed as a conventional hack. If Clinton was famous for practicing the "politics of promiscuity" - his willingness to try out a variety of ideological positions - then Schwarzenegger is a political cross-dresser. He's the quality-of-life nut whose pro-environment views sit comfortably with Democrats; he's the self-made multimillionaire boss who embraces the Republican's laissez-faire approach to business.
Schwarzenegger also acts in ways that most politicians, beholden to moneyed interests, can only dream of. It's no surprise that, as a Republican, he attacked trial lawyers for trying to scotch his workers' comp reform. Or that he leaned on California's prison guards to accept a delay in Davis-era raises - saving the state about $100 million - after boasting that he wouldn't "take a penny" in campaign donations from public unions. But he sticks it to the other side as well. He angered corporate interests - not to mention Sacramento Republicans - by appointing Democrat Terry Tamminen to lead the California Environmental Protection Agency. Last winter, he resisted pressure at the state Republican convention to oppose gay marriage, and when asked by Jay Leno if he had a problem with changing California law to allow same-sex marriage, Schwarzenegger responded, "No, I have no problem. Let the court decide. Let the people decide."
The best example of Schwarzenegger taking on the political establishment is his determination to drive a stake through the practice of gerrymandering. For decades, politicians in both parties have colluded to create safe electoral districts - areas drawn in bizarre configurations to capture Democrats in one district and Republicans in another. This conspiracy to rig the system has all but killed the competition of ideas. As a result, voters too often face a choice between a well-financed extremist from their own party and a weak, unelectable candidate from the other party. Seats are so safe that contests in all but 30 of the 435 congressional districts in the US can be predicted months before voters go to the polls. In his campaign, Schwarzenegger called for a constitutional amendment that would remap safe districts. The plan: Assign a panel of retired judges to draw boundaries based on geography, not ideology. He's talking with Ted Costa, the activist who helped put the Davis recall on the ballot, about how to make this happen through a 2006 ballot initiative.
Finally, Schwarzenegger taps the power of California itself, the perfect platform from which to launch a revolution. From Reagan's supply-side economics and limited government to the direct democracy of ballot referendums, the state is the country's leading laboratory for political experimentation. Analyst Pat Caddell, former pollster for Jimmy Carter, calls California "the biggest political lever in the nation - what Archimedes was thinking of when he said 'Give me a place to stand, and I can change the world.' If Arnold actively enlists the citizenry, he could change everything."
Change it to what? Schwarzenegger's ideology can only be summed up as radical centrism - a belief that policy should be made (and politics should be practiced) from the middle, not the extremes so often favored by the parties. The allure of the center is clear: That's where most people live politically. Likewise, that's where a good politician can find the common ground needed to get things done.
What makes this centrism radical is the possibility that candidates across the country will replicate the model, that voters will see Schwarzenegger's success and say, I want a leader like him. I want a pragmatist, an optimist, a problem solver, a politician free of obligations. With 21 percent of voters still soft on who they'll choose for president four months before Election Day, the Schwarzenegger center is not a bad place to be.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, says the media promotes the picture of a polarized electorate even though Americans are filled with nuance and mixed viewpoints. "A typical person might be a fiscally conservative, socially liberal, free marketeer," he says. "That doesn't line up with either party." Republican consultant Kevin Spillane notes that Schwarzenegger is now a rising figure among a small band of Republican moderates like Arizona senator John McCain, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and secretary of state Colin Powell. "These guys are easily the most popular politicians in the country today," says Spillane. Indeed, Schwarzenegger's status as the nation's second-most-famous politician earned him a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention in New York - even though he refused to leave California to campaign for the president.
Of course, Schwarzenegger's determination to stay above the fray can be sorely tested in the rough-and-tumble world of big-time politics. In the spring, a TV reporter tried to get him to blame California's woes on the ruling Democrats. "I'm not getting involved in that Mickey Mouse stuff," he brusquely responded. A few months later, he hammered Democratic leaders for playing partisan games that drove the California budget past its deadline, but again refused to be baited by the press: "Democrats are our partners - they're just on the wrong track right now." But by the end of July, he had lost his patience, leveling an attack. Frustrated by the budget impasse, he stood before a crowd in a food court at a California mall and called his foes "girlie men," saying, "they should get back to the table, and they should finish the budget."
So the liberating power of post-party politics has its limits; it's still easy to get drawn into partisan sniping. But this run has just begun. At a New York event honoring Schwarzenegger earlier this year, investment genius Warren Buffett compared his younger pal to Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose profound battles to recast the essential duties of government transformed the country. When it comes to making predictions, Buffett is no slouch. Schwarzenegger really does have a chance to set off a national movement that puts problem-solving above ideology and snatches government from special interests. It wouldn't be the first time the nation was unexpectedly swept by a wind out of California.
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