The next election for governor of California is a long way off, but if you thought we had fun last time, just imagine the possibilities.
Arnold "Big Boy" Schwarzenegger runs for reelection, and his opponent is either Rob Reiner or Warren Beatty. It'll be an all-Hollywood political slamfest, and it could be all the merrier if Gary Coleman decides to give it another try.
Not that any of those actors, including Schwarzenegger, have said they'll run in 2006. Reiner, who led the preschool funding initiative in California, often pops up on lists of potential candidates. And you have to admit there's some appeal in a showdown between the Terminator and the Meathead.
But Reiner seems a little shy about taking the next step. Beatty, on the other hand, is already on his toes and throwing punches. He was supposed to be giving a commencement speech last week to UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, but it sounded more like the launching of a political campaign.
"Cancel it, governor. Call it off," Beatty said, slamming Schwarzenegger's planned $70-million special election, in which voters would be asked to do the job the governor and legislators can't seem to do on their own.
Beatty called Arnold a photo-op fanatic who stages "the fake events, the fake issues, the fake crowds," and pushes a "reactionary, right-wing agenda" that hurts some of the very people who supported him, including nurses, teachers and cops.
The governor has raised millions in corporate donations after rising to power on the strength of his call for an end to compulsive fundraising and special-interest, pay-to-play politics. Better to follow the cue of former Govs. Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson, Beatty said, and tax the rich.
Beatty took his shots at a time when Schwarzenegger's popularity is tanking and on the eve of huge anti-Arnold rallies in Los Angeles and Sacramento. So can it be seen as anything other than the start of Beatty's own gubernatorial campaign?
Beatty told the students he's not planning to run for governor, but he said he'd do a much better job than Arnold.
After the speech, he said he wasn't ruling out a run.
So what's he trying to say?
"I talked to him yesterday for a while," Democratic strategist Bill Carrick said of Beatty on Thursday, "and I don't think he's going to end up running. But I think he is testing the water in the sense that he wants to lead the way for people to understand it's time to take the governor on."
