Both comparisons are instructive. Reagan, after a rough start, became an effective governor. Ventura made little practical use of his celebrity status, quarreled with legislators and just about everyone else, and became so unpopular that he did not seek a second term.
Schwarzenegger is his own man. He is less irascible and more goal-oriented than Ventura, and more gregarious than Reagan, who engaged legislators socially only after aides persuaded him that this was politically necessary. Schwarzenegger enjoys the give-and-take with Burton and other legislators. "He believes in the power of his personality," says White.
Because Schwarzenegger -- and his wife, Maria Shriver -- are such stars, the governor is able to tap talent that might be unavailable to ordinary politicians, says Mark Baldassare, the research director of the Public Policy Institute of California and an expert on direct democracy. Parvin makes a similar point: "He can get any expert on the telephone any time he wants."
Still, it is not clear that Schwarzenegger, even if he wanted to do so, could emulate Reagan's performance in his first year as governor, when he endorsed a billion-dollar tax increase, the equivalent of more than $5 billion today, to erase an inherited budget deficit. Ventura, in contrast, did not agree to a tax increase until his third year in office; by then he was too unpopular to get it.
While proclaiming his opposition to any tax increase, Schwarzenegger has left the door open by refusing to sign a no-tax pledge when he ran for governor. Last month, he told the Los Angeles Times that his opposition to tax increases might be "wishful thinking." In this respect, says White, the governor finds himself in the position of Reagan and Wilson, who detested new taxes but found the alternative worse. Reagan in 1967 and Wilson in 1991 won bipartisan support with budgets that blended spending slowdowns advocated by Republicans with tax increases that Democrats believed were necessary.
Privately, even some Republicans in Sacramento acknowledge that the state can't balance the budget, as Schwarzenegger proposed to do in January, with spending cuts and borrowing alone. They also find it inconceivable that Burton or most other Democrats would accept the billions of dollars of reductions in social spending envisioned by the governor's January budget. But no Republican legislator has stepped forward to support a tax increase, nor is any likely to do so. Republicans are more dug in against taxes than in Reagan's or even Wilson's days. "Many of the conservative Republicans of the Reagan era would be considered moderates now," observes Steffes, the former Reagan liaison.
Schwarzenegger's ace in the hole, says Republican and Democratic strategists alike, is that GOP legislative candidates need him more than he needs them. And in a budget deal that included a tax increase and had Democratic support, Schwarzenegger would need only six Republican votes in the Assembly and two in the Senate to prevail.
Still, no one thinks that a budget agreement will be easy to get, even for a superstar. In the months ahead, it will take all Schwarzenegger's charm and determination to write a happy ending to his Sacramento production.
