Part Reagan, Part Clinton and All Political Theater
It's entirely possible that I'm beginning to hallucinate after writing 16 or 17 recall columns the past two months. Or it's possible that for entirely selfish reasons (lots of empty space to fill over the next three years), I would give my right kidney to have an action hero running the state.
But I think I was in the presence of a natural Wednesday afternoon when Arnold Schwarzenegger walked up to a hotel podium near LAX and launched a political career.
There's an old line about actors wishing they were politicians, and vice versa, but Schwarzenegger proved there might not be a difference.
If you were expecting the Terminator to come off like a rube, it didn't happen.
If you were expecting him to be so unfamiliar with the ABCs of governance that you'd want to leap into the arms of Gov. Gray Davis, you probably should be getting help.
By the time Schwarzenegger was done making a speech and fielding questions in front of a frighteningly large international media horde, he had already established himself as a more skilled politician than the career politicians he's running against.
Not that he had much to say, mind you. But he was very good at saying next to nothing, and that could be a winning ticket in a seven-week campaign that's piped into living rooms from Crescent City to Coronado. Politics is a sleight-of-hand enterprise, like acting, and Arnold's already got it down cold.
There'll be no new taxes, no cuts in education, and businesses will no longer be harassed into fleeing the state, which will mean fantastic jobs for one and all. Unfortunately, despite insisting the budget deficit was caused by sinfully irresponsible overspending, Schwarzenegger couldn't name a single program he'd cut.
Not one.
I was a little surprised, frankly, because Arnold had just led a private 2 1/2-hour summit of his so-called California Economic Recovery Council. What the heck were those geezers talking about in there, the price of cigars?
But Arnold didn't perspire when pressed. He said he'd have to get one of his panels of experts to conduct an audit, and then he might let us know about possible cuts later in the campaign.
But the sound bite you were more likely to hear on the evening news was Arnold complaining that you're taxed from the moment you get up in the morning and flush the toilet, and you're taxed all day long, and if we don't put a tough guy like Conan the Barbarian in charge, they're likely to come up with a sleeping tax.
