SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made the rounds of national television news shows in recent months, met with President-elect Barack Obama and convened conferences, discussing the world economic crisis, the pitfalls of partisanship and the virtues of clean energy.
Now, in the new year, he has returned to Sacramento with a narrower, and much more painful, task. He must address Californians on Thursday about the state of their state, with the government he was elected to repair five years ago in a crisis worse than the one he inherited -- one that has left the state's coffers short of cash, services sputtering to a halt and negotiations in the Capitol at a standstill.
The first California governor elected in a recall election will leave office in two years, giving Schwarzenegger a limited window to determine which narrative becomes his legacy. Will he be remembered as a leader who leveraged his star power to promote visionary ideas? Or as the action-movie hero who unseated a sitting governor with a vow to make government function again, but was unable to deliver a happy ending?
Although Schwarzenegger and others say his good intentions have been foiled by extremist state lawmakers, an unstable tax structure, a broken budget system and a global recession, none of that may matter when history is written, some analysts believe.
"So far, he hasn't solved the problem that he was elected to solve," said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at UC San Diego. "In crisis you have opportunity to be great, if you can pull it off somehow. If you can't, it's hard to be perceived as a success."
Schwarzenegger and his aides have been searching for ways to broaden his focus to ideas for which he would like to be known, such as improving healthcare and education, even as he proposes to slash billions of dollars from services in those areas.
The governor, who takes pride in a lifetime of achievements in bodybuilding, Hollywood and business, would like to replicate what he considers some of his best political moments.
He signed a landmark bill to reduce global warming and advanced other policies to increase the use of clean energy; teamed with lawmakers on a successful campaign for $42 billion in voter-approved public works construction bonds; and issued a call for post-partisanship that reverberated across the nation.
