Muscular Republicanism
LABASH, MATT
Muscular Republicanism Arnold Schwarzenegger's California dreamin' BY MATT LABASH Contra Costa, Calif. Of all the assignments I've drawn over the years, none would seem to be as trifling as...
...While he considers himself a true-blue Republican, he says his wife's parents, Sargent and Eunice of Peace Corps and Special Olympics fame, are his "biggest allies...
...To take the trailer incident as an example, he says, "When someone said [they] walked into my trailer, and I was eating a chick in the living room, [Maria] knows I'm not that stupid, number one...
...I always go for the top of the line in everything I do...
...Arnold is merely stressing that kids, left to their own devices, will often become the degenerates that places like the teen center are funded to prevent...
...Or they can elect an inept, weak, and not very bright Republican named Bill Simon...
...Fishing pieces of paper out of a bowl, on which are scrawled various issues (auto theft, vandalism), the kids discuss how they would address these problems if they were sheriff for a day...
...Dude," warns Arnold's policy director Paul Miner, "if you call us 'an entourage,' you're off the f—ing plane...
...Arnold snakes around the television area, where teenagers are obligatorily watching Kindergarten Cop, and decides to join some 10th graders in a spirited foosball game...
...It is Arnold-authored...
...And not before he praises George W. Bush...
...Of the current gubernatorial crop, one says, "I wouldn't vote for either of these guys...
...She even critiques his Tonight Show appearances, pointing out when he drops the ball, playing something for laughs when he could have launched into a serious discussion of the issues...
...Both are nitwits...
...After a short hop to Sacramento, Schwarzenegger displays yet another political gift: the ability to appear authentic even in the treacliest settings...
...His face is all sharp angles and symmetrical planes— a cinderblock with hair...
...But all of the sudden, when you break the mirror in front of you, you want to reach out and help other people...
...Staying out of this year's race, say some of the state's top Republican strategists, was one of the smartest plays Arnold could make...
...I think he's really worried to take off de jacket...
...The difference between working for Yeltsin and working for Arnold, says Gorton, is that Yeltsin was "an alcoholic, surrounded by aristocratic, arrogant, and mostly corrupt people...
...When I stopped, with a yahhhhd-stick, she would hit me over de head...
...Arnold then makes his way over to a busy circle of high schoolers, who look up from their algebra...
...You do...
...I know what that means...
...Then I'd have to call Eunice and ask if I can give away the statements she makes...
...For advice on how to dodge questions about his political future, Arnold has turned to Maria Shriver, who once told her Kennedy kin: "Don't look at [Arnold] as a Republican, look at him as the man I love...
...He marshals studies showing that the state will save money in crime prevention, emphasizing that funding for his initiative will only be triggered after the state is in better financial health...
...Instead, they are pumping him for info about "Terminator 3." ment hiring), the rest of the brain trust are Wilson veterans...
...Why are you taking the fly off de vall...
...While one estimate says 383 people have died in his films, Arnold, who now has four kids of his own, has made a pronounced effort in recent years to take on lower-body-count projects...
...But reporters aren't the only Republican-resistant constituency Arnold appears to be capable of charming...
...You don't want to be governor next year," says one...
...Arnold nixed running shortly thereafter, leading many to speculate that it was these stories, and not contractual concerns, that kept him out of the gubernatorial race...
...While people initially thought Bush unqualified, "He's proven otherwise...
...When he lights up a stogie, and I ask him what brand, knowing that he has visited the Partagas factory in Havana, everyone falls silent...
...Number two, I have two guards standing out at all times in front of my trailer so no one could walk in...
...Of the Davis campaign manager's blast faxes, he says, "First of all, I didn't expect anything less from Garry South...
...One sheriff's department employee says things have gotten so bleak that the local Republican boss "is a 22-year-old college student who sounds like he's 12...
...There is also, over a day's course, a fair amount of good-natured hazing...
...What do Republicans need to do to gain statewide office...
...Schwarzenegger says that the charges were so outrageous that "half of it in there, right off the top, my wife didn't believe," so "I don't have to explain that much to her...
...Arnold, or "Ahh-nuld" as he calls himself, is barnstorming the state to drum up support for Proposition 49, a ballot initiative that would increase access to after-school programs by making matching grants available for all K-9 public schools...
...His association has also endorsed Gray Davis, but when asked what they'd have done if Arnold were running, he says, "I'm glad we haven't had to make that choice...
...If Simon loses, Davis will have been at it for eight years, and by then we'll look more economically socialist than Sweden, so the base will be ready for anything...
...For instance, Denise Van Outen, onetime host of Great Britain's Big Breakfast show, in which she interviewed guests in a bed, was openly flirtatious with Arnold, saying, "You grabbed my breast," then adding, "I really like it...
...If you ever run for governor, you have my help...
...For though it is a feel-good proposition—being for after-school care is as politically risky as being against eating puppies— Arnold is leaving nothing to chance, and has hired a crackerjack staff...
...Apparently, it is a bit much for Arnold as well...
...Win," he says...
...Arnold the Republican is sometimes compared to Ronald Reagan because of their showbiz pedigrees, but there was one reason Arnold signed on with the GOP: Richard Nixon...
...While admitting that Simon is not a friend (Arnold campaigned for Richard Riordan, Simon's primary opponent), when it comes to poor-mouthing feckless Republicans, Arnold takes his wife's advice...
...At this point, antsy handlers pull Arnold to the front of the plane for "planning," but not before he promises, "I'll be back...
...Since state GOP chair Shawn Steel is one of the last men in California who believes Simon can win (thus fouling an Arnold run in 2006), he is already pushing Schwarzenegger to consider challenging Senator Barbara Boxer in two years...
...Still, these Teutonic gutturals make for an oddly pleasing accent, freighting even throwaway utterances with extra comic punch that would allow Schwarzenegger to read the phone book, or even a Gray Davis speech, and still be entertaining...
...Is this a run for governor...
...These days, columnists are trying to promote a 2006 face-off with Rob Reiner, aka Meathead from All in the Family...
...I don't like when you're around," he tells the power-forward-sized sheriff, "because I don't like people who are bigger than I am...
...They never got in any scuffs or discussions...
...he asks...
...That would be really, really nice...
...This is not to suggest that one of the state's most formidable campaign teams has gone showbiz...
...Every one of them could go by and hit me in the head...
...I mean, they should have a fly on dat wall...
...In a caravan, we depart for the sheriff's office for a press conference highlighting Prop 49...
...Just then, Schwarzenegger's plane lands...
...At the press conference, Arnold proves that's he's more than just a heavily muscled piece of meat...
...Spying the sheriff as he descends from the plane, Arnold repeatedly roars a hearty "RRRupf...
...Get more, like, after-school programs that kids can go to," she says...
...chips in the one slightly off-message child...
...since media types are more concerned about Arnold's gubernatorial prospects in 2006 than they are Prop 49's in 2002...
...It helped me...
...The center, which sits next to a Tae Kwon Do studio in a strip mall, is a veritable Potemkin village of wholesome teen and preteen after-school activity...
...ads...
...I never asked them for anything, and never will...
...More compact than onscreen, his drum-tight skin is a suspiciously even bronze...
...Then, with a Mephistophelean smirk, he adds, "But no one that has been around me would believe that a woman would be complaining about me holding her...
...Indeed, the crowds and buzz Arnold generates at each stop feel less like an education forum for some down-ballot initiative, more like the early rumblings of a presidential campaign (though being president is not in the cards for a naturalized citizen from Graz, Austria, despite Schwarzenegger's joke that constitutions are made to be amended...
...If this guy is a Republican, then I am a Republican...
...But my moth-ahh would spend time with me, saying read out loud...
...His eyes serve as calipers, making you conscious of your own body fat...
...The proposition's website is joinarnold.com...
...When the Prop 49 campaign is over, he says, "Then I can talk about it with the press and not worry about it...
...But mostly, they do what California Republicans have done ever since Pete Wilson was term-limited out of the governor's mansion in 1998: complain about the complete abasement of the state Republican party...
...I was reading so fast, let me tell you...
...Throughout the day, there is all sorts of rather un-politician-like behavior from Arnold...
...That would be really nice...
...political future...
...Of all the assignments I've drawn over the years, none would seem to be as trifling as the one that has me standing on an airstrip, gulping gnats on a tropical October morning...
...Finally, after toying with him a bit, he sinks a lightning-quick pull shot, and though I expect him to finish off the kid with one of his trademark corny one-liners (something like "Milk is for babies, men drink beer"), he just lets the kid suck on defeat, giving him the same canary-eating grin that he gave the vanquished Lou Ferrigno during the 1977 Mr...
...His press secretary, Sheri Annis, says this is one of the many luxuries she didn't see when working on prior proposition efforts...
...He told the story to Nixon some years later, and naturally, Nixon adored it...
...Also advising Schwarzenegger are Wilson's former chief of staff Bob White and Wilson's former policy cruncher Paul Miner, who does the same for Arnold...
...In the middle of our travels, we switch from the smaller Citation Excel to a lavish Gulfstream IV-SP the world's premier large-cabin jet...
...I like violence...
...By way of explanation, Arnold interrupts what he's saying to point me out and announce, "He's a fly on de wall...
...As Schwarzenegger's press secretary introduces us, I tell him I'll be a fly-on-the-wall for the day...
...As I told him, you're a hero—but not for the reasons you see on screen...
...Another interlocutor tries to thump him for his violent films...
...I ask one 9-year-old aspiring Smoky how she'd eliminate graffiti...
...Wilson himself is one of the campaign's co-chairs...
...But much as Texas politicians tend to talk like they've just taken a break from punching cattle, Arnold seems to have allowed his accent to grow stronger, another instance of his self-marketing genius...
...But he has other things on his mind...
...As for their spirited dinner-table debates, he says, "I can't fill you in...
...Even through the window of his Cessna Citation Excel, his jaws look as powerful as a Black Forest nutcracker...
...After the grip'n'grins, Arnold disappears into a back room to meet with local law enforcement types...
...I never know if my wife's watching...
...she pants...
...He has come to the North Area Teen Center to sell his proposition by doing what all politicians do, and most don't do very well: pandering to children...
...Now what are you doing...
...That is not something likely to happen with Arnold's Schwarzenegger says that the charges were so outrageous that "half of it in there, right off the top, my wife didn't believe...
...That does not mean I'm not guilty of some of this stuff," he says, referring to his well-earned reputation for having a ribald sense of humor...
...On the runway, I am joined by giddy members of the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department...
...He recasts what could be a conservative critique—that he is advocating expansion of government in a sagging economy—to fit into his socially liberal (he's pro-choice and favors "sensible" gun control), fiscally conservative philosophy...
...Meanwhile, says Steel, Arnold is building a statewide political profile by pushing a win-win proposition that helps kids without raising taxes, he's assembled one of the best political teams around, and he's building up IOU's by making appearances for Republicans...
...The leather seats are so buttery smooth that the captain says the cows from which they were borrowed were "better than free range...
...Yeah, he's that guy from Kindergarten Cop," she says, admitting that she's not allowed to watch his R-rated fare...
...When he removes his jacket, showing his arms, even his veins have veins...
...Last Watching a Nixon speech in 1968, Arnold made up his mind...
...After flirting with running for governor last year, Arnold as recently as late September quashed speculation Matt Labash is senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...While he takes some pointers from the in-laws—he calls Kennedy wordsmith Robert Shrum a "buddy," who has sometimes lent a hand on speeches—Arnold clouds over when I ask if he'd be eligible for the largesse of the Kennedy fund-raising machine if he ran...
...All of this, says Steel, means "he's ideally positioned to do whatever he wants...
...For other campaigns, she was the organization, planning everything down to hanging bunting off the podium...
...Much of the Premiere reporting contains background sniping...
...Sixty-five percent of likely voters say they wish someone else were running, and the someone most often mentioned is the man for whom I'm inhaling large clouds of bugs: actor/humanitarian/Conan-the-Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger...
...Freebies," says his policy director Paul Miner, "that's his brand...
...The budget's a mess, they're going to have to raise taxes, the governor is going to have a very rough year...
...If there is a whiff of place-holding and trial-ballooning about the whole enterprise, Schwarzenegger, it should be noted, is not an Arnie-come-lately to children's issues...
...I tell him I shouldn't be privy to such sensitive conversations...
...We have absolutely no direction...
...These are salty dogs, whiskered editorial page folks...
...Don Sipple, Wilson's former media guy, is now Arnold's ad man...
...It reminds me of when the Oakland A's were losing so badly that they had to sign a broadcast contract with a college station...
...They're quite outrageous sometimes...
...When Schwarzenegger arrives, he is mobbed by reporters, a scene you won't see replicated at a press conference for, say, Prop 46, a bond issue to refurbish low-income housing...
...But listening to Nixon advocate a stronger military, "getting the government off our back," and opening up trade, "I said, 'No, I love what this guy is saying...
...And if that doesn't work, look at him as someone who can squash you...
...Arnold's proposition campaign has raised $8 million— the first million of which came from him...
...With his thick-tongued Styrian enunciations—the Austrian equivalent of a Mississippi accent—his "w's" become "v's," his "th's" become "d's," his diphthongs, dip-wrongs...
...But Arnold grabs the two middle handles, and starts taking it at the goalie, blocking all his clearing shots, stuffing him like a Christmas turkey...
...I have deliberately saved questions on this matter for the last leg of our trip back to Los Angeles, not wishing to get pum-meled like a girly man, or (more important) to get tossed from the plane and stranded in Sacramento...
...As the advance team second-guess themselves, I am asked to leave...
...As at most top-shelf political gatherings, the props have been well coached...
...Then why'd you introduce him...
...Once inside, I expect to see deals being made, territories divvied, supplicants lobbying the future governor for patronage jobs for their idiot brothers-in-law...
...With an Arnold run rumored to be imminent, Gray Davis's campaign manager, Garry South, wasted no time faxing the articles to reporters, with the inscription, "a real touching story...
...As for the charges, Arnold says they are outlandish and untrue...
...Arnold asks his people...
...Another is asked if she knows who Arnold is...
...He says he doesn't need their money, "or anything else...
...It's always good to be underestimated...
...Simon is too dumb to win...
...Over the last 20 years, he has done extensive work with the Special Olympics, served as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness for the first President Bush, and in 1995 co-founded the Inner-City Games Foundation, an after-school program for over 200,000 kids...
...That would be the story the next day on the news, and the kids would suffer because nobody's promoting their after-school program...
...No," he says, "times have changed, but I mean in those days, it was a very physical situation...
...The Republicans among them fill me in on political topography...
...Here, Arnold lapses into a perfect Nixon impression (the best acting he's done since 1988's Twins): "You'd make a great politician...
...Still, seeing him careen into the third-rail of corporal punishment is somewhat refreshing, even if the program director's jaw seems to drop when she asks if he is advocating yardstick beatings...
...It is hard to imagine even Hillary Clinton delivering this line with a straight face...
...When asked about Schwarzenegger, he immediately perks up...
...Yah, they spend all the money, I get nothing," offers Arnold, who's actually getting $30 million...
...Comb Arnold stories through the years, and a natural progression is evident, from the lubed-up bodybuilder who in the 1970s said, "Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way," to today's Arnold who says, "There's a time when it's always just me, me, me...
...Overseeing it all is George Gorton, Wilson's campaign manager, who not only steered Wilson to victory in four statewide races but made a name for himself as part of the mercenary team of American advisers who helped Boris Yeltsin win Russia's second democratic election (albeit through heavy use of undemocratic, state-controlled media...
...But you know something...
...When a staffer suggests I take off my suit jacket to make myself more comfortable, Arnold booms, in his best Hans & Franz voice: "I think he has a shitty bod-eee...
...Of the women I speak with, six say that if Arnold were running for governor today, they'd vote for him, two are undecided, and one wouldn't vote for him, since she's convinced he hates Hispanics, though she can't recall why...
...Heh...
...Besides spokeswoman Sheri Annis, a veteran of the more contentious campaigns for Prop 227 (eliminating bilingual education) and Prop 209 (eliminating race and gender-based preferences in governWhen Arnold disappears into the back room, I expect to see deals being made...
...Like most Californians, who are famously allergic to politics, I want no part of either...
...But then he turns around and says, "Even though I would like to say, 'of course it would be great for me to be governor,' I don't say it, because people misinterpret...
...At Buchanan Airfield in Concord, California, I await the arrival of a private jet, to follow a candidate who hasn't declared, for a race that is not being run...
...As I laugh involuntarily, the reporter skitters over, asking, "What did he say...
...It's a little late to get Nixon's help, but if he runs in 2006, Schwarzenegger might still enjoy a big push from on high...
...His political strategy is much like his acting method, which he describes as "banging it out...
...It is one month out in the California gubernatorial election...
...he says in my ear, throwing me a battering-ram nudge...
...It is not a celebrity sign-on project like the George Foreman Grill...
...Outside the station house, Arnold does a turn with the kids, who are standing in front of a construction mock-up of a miniature city, which they use for role-playing purposes in their after-school program...
...Republicans boast just one statewide officeholder, are a minority in both the legislature and congressional delegation, and are expected to stay that way for at least the next decade...
...At first, I think she wants me to disclose Schwarzenegger's sotto voce comment...
...Californians, he wrote, "can reelect an inept, corrupt incumbent Democrat named Gray Davis...
...By comparison, Bill Simon's campaign has only $4 million on hand for the rest of the election...
...From the looks of things this cycle, they already have...
...Sometimes you have the most fun time, and then you don't get the endorse-ment—they screw you, you know...
...Yeah, right," he scoffs self-deprecat-ingly...
...It comes with gold-fitted drink holders, walnut paneling, even a roll-top wooden drawer concealing the toilet paper in the lavatory...
...If this guy is a Republican, then I am a Republican...
...From the overstuffed couches to the ping pong and pool tables, from the tutor-stocked computer labs, to the old-school soda fountain, it seems the kind of place Archie and Jughead would've gone to if they'd been latchkey kids...
...While these staffers insist they have not discussed a Schwarzenegger 2006 gubernatorial run (even though Gorton was hired shortly before Arnold announced he wouldn't run this cycle), it would take a pretty naive customer to believe that all these gun-slingers just want to pass after-school care for the kids...
...Oh great, he says, rolling his eyes, "I sleep with a journalist [his wife, Maria Shriver...
...It will upset about 20 to 40 percent of our base, but because he's a celebrity, there's going to be a huge forgiveness factor...
...I'll tell her it was a stuntman...
...The dull (incumbent Gray Davis, who in a rare flash of color said that Al Gore is his charisma adviser) is leading the desperate (Republican Bill Simon, who is on his fourth campaign manager and, a year into the campaign, is running "Do you know me...
...He shows mastery of budgetary minutiae...
...I have my own team, and I'm very happy with the team...
...The rule of thumb in such situations is to exert effort, but let the kids win, then give an oafish aren't-I-a-big-doofus chuckle before patting them on the head, offering a strained metaphor for whatever you're peddling, and moving on to the next prop...
...Stepping into the Prop 49 campaign is like falling into a Pete Wilson time warp...
...That already makes the story not credible...
...The team, of course, does not say publicly that they wish for Simon to lose, clearing the way for Arnold (in fact campaign manager Gorton says he hopes Simon wins...
...Go on, have another go...
...While Arnold is a little skeptical about Bush's designs on Iraq (though not enough to elaborate, since there's no mention of regime change in Prop 49), he says of the president, "He's a great guy, I think he's learned a lot...
...But strapped into his seat, eating a plate of fruit, Arnold cavalierly and forthrightly beats me to the subject...
...Of the speculation Arnold says, "I pay no attention to it...
...But it was his original reply she couldn't decipher...
...year, stories in both the National Enquirer and Premiere magazine alleged that Arnold had been grabby with some British television hostesses while promoting a film ("Kindergarten Cop-a-Feel" chimed one tabloid), as well as engaging in some more sustained extramarital shenanigans...
...See how I got out of dat one...
...Arnold could face a major impediment, however...
...Universe documentary Pumping Iron...
...Like a gifted horse," adds Arnold, "you don't look it in the mouth...
...Keep up the good work, okay, see you, bye-bye...
...You do things that someone today may take as [going] too far...
...Arnold thrusts and parries and plays to the crowd...
...I love what this guy is saying...
...After the Premiere piece, numerous celebrities, including Hamilton and Cameron, wrote letters to the editor claiming the charges were "pure fiction" (the reporter stood by his story...
...Premiere—yah...
...Arnold says these are fantasies...
...By the end of the speech, the man a Playboy magazine writer once called "one of the more finely tuned control freaks that I have met in a career of celebrity interviews" is actually thanking the media for their support...
...Explaining how entertainment reporters, unlike political reporters, rarely want to do him in, he turns to his press secretary saying, "Except for, you know—what's that magazine that wrote that shitty article about me...
...As Pauline Kael once noted, he seems to have "hams implanted above his elbows...
...But at some point, I look up, and they've come out of their seats and they're doing high-fives across the table because Arnold is talking about doing Terminator 4." Sheriff Warren Rupf, who doubles as president of the California State Sheriffs' Association, says his organization, like every other law enforcement organization in the state, has endorsed Prop 49, since after-school programs curtail crime by keeping unsupervised juveniles off the street...
...His wife, he says, gives him eloquently simple advice: "She said, 'Don't screw up.' I said, 'How can I make sure of that?' She said, 'Don't talk.'" It's not the first time he's turned to the Shrivers for guidance...
...Though the editorial board meeting seemed to go well, he doesn't care...
...By press conference's end, fierce political reporters are applauding, getting their bellies scratched like they're on a John McCain bus tour...
...Arnold is sitting at one of these long tables in between a deputy publisher and an editor...
...There were also examples of more piggish behavior— for instance, Arnold supposedly groped Terminator co-star Linda Hamilton in a limo in front of her boyfriend/director James Cameron, and a visitor to the set of one of his films is supposed to have happened on him in his trailer, orally gratifying someone other than his wife...
...rolling the name around in his mouth like a Viennese confection...
...Last year when asked to speculate about a possible Arnold candidacy, presidential adviser Karl Rove sounded enthusiastic, telling the New York Times, "That would be nice...
...When a reporter asks about token opposition from groups like the League of Women Voters, he counters by pulling out a list (running 12 pages) of endorsing groups across the political spectrum, then threatens to read the entire thing...
...But still, he says, the fact that they thought of him "as so much of a threat" was "incredible" and probably a good indication of "how [South] feels about his candidate...
...Further evidencing Arnold's cross-partisan appeal, when I call Meathead's people, they tell me Reiner has such high regard for Arnold that he donated $5,000 to his Prop 49 campaign...
...When Schwarzenegger exits the meeting, I inform him things are looking good for a run, though he might have creeping negatives among Latinos...
...Arnold squares up and fixes her with a most solemn gaze...
...And its passage seems entirely dependent on the action star's cult of per-sonality—not a bad thing in California, where neither "cult" nor "personality" is a word generally associated with Davis or Simon...
...One reporter would show up," she says, "and we were damn happy to have him...
...When a stewardess goofs his meal order, he turns to me and calls her "a forehead" (his term of endearment for the not-so-bright...
...Of Arnold's pro-choice stance—which he makes no bones about—one influential Republican says this will actually help him in a general election, and wouldn't hurt him much in a primary...
...It is hard to imagine even a gold-plated children-shiller like Hillary Clinton delivering this line with a straight face...
...He asks them if they like doing homework...
...Arnold, he says, "is the nicest guy I ever met...
...For irony-seekers, there is the added bonus that the same group that promoted the divisive Prop 187 (cutting services for illegal aliens) is now in place to grease the skids for the first immigrant governor of "Cal-ee-for-nee-ahhh," as Arnold says...
...I can't understand him," she complains...
...This is a run for the children," he says...
...Do you know how fast I read again...
...In the last few years," he says, "I've toned it down because it has become a different world now, because of the sexual harassment...
...Indeed, it has been 34 years since the 55-year-old Schwarzenegger left his native Austria with nothing more than a gym bag, washing up on our shores to take over the bodybuilding world, then the film world, and next, well, probably the world...
...In fact, when Arnold found out Gorton's wife (also a political consultant) was an amateur actress, without Gorton's asking, Arnold screen-tested her for Terminator 3 and gave her a bit part...
...But be smart...
...Another suggests I get swatted...
...Immediately, a television reporter cuts to the money question, "This is a run for the childrenhe says...
...As we travel to the San Jose Mercury News so that he can lobby for an editorial board endorsement, I get parked in the lobby...
...Regarding the Davis and Simon campaigns, which have been fraught with ethical lapses and strategic bungles, the mood has probably best been captured by Lyn Nofziger, a California hand from the Reagan years, whom the Simon campaign once billed as an adviser (Nofziger, understandably, denies it...
...Here, I conduct an unscientific focus group with the women in classified advertising, one of whom is a Democrat who actually says, upon being informed that Arnold is here, "Oh, I've got to look pretty then...
...Arnold counters that he can influence kids for good as a result of his action-star perch, then he shamelessly plugs Collateral Damage, just released on DVD...
...asks one officer...
...Many of the named grousees were in strangely public situations that would have seemed reckless even by Clintonian standards if Arnold had been committing actual lechery, instead of harmless flirtations in bad taste...
...They tell me that the place they're taking Arnold for his event—Martinez—is the birthplace of the martini...
...You would've seen the ads," he says: "'If this is how he treats his friends, how can we leave him in charge of the economy?'" When I ask what the numbers were like on his pollster's trial balloon, asking if voters would support a write-in candidacy, most of Arnold's people conveniently claim not to know, though Arnold himself mischievously mouths "very big...
...But that would have meant bailing on contractual film obligations, which would have forced producer friends to sue him...
...But if they endorse [the proposition], it's fine with me...
...As for Arnold, the more evidence accrues, the more it seems Californians could do worse than having Schwarzenegger as their governor...
...To which Arnold replied, "It was a handful...
...Take your pick...
...About his gubernatorial ambitions, Schwarzenegger is circumspect since he doesn't want to step on the publicity he's generating for Prop 49...
...One thing I know for sure is that if I would've been able to run [this year], I would've...
...Bet on Davis...
...His mother-in-law, he says, serves as a clipping service—constantly sending him articles and book chapters...
...They do...
...Rupf is tall and Germanic and strikes one as a serious man with a serious mustache and a serious firearm, but when speaking of Schwarzenegger, he sounds like a common groupie: "Arnold has a well-developed sense of humor, and a passion for doing things that are going to improve kids' chances to get ahead...
...He's been getting pushed to run for governor, he says, ever since he rocketed to fame in the late seventies, when friends fantasized that he'd go up against Jane Fonda in a celebrity death match...
...Journalists are barred, but as the fly-on-the-wall, I'm permitted entry...
...While watching a Nixon speech in 1968, one which a friend translated because Arnold's English was still so spotty, his friend told him, "He's a Republican—it's the wrong party...
...Instead, they are pumping him for information about the upcoming Terminator 3. One official commiserates that costly special effects eat through most of the budget...
...I'll admit it, when I was your age, I hated it...
...Throughout the day, most of our chatting gets done on Arnold's time-shared private jets...
...A few weeks ago, he says, he accompanied Arnold to an editorial board meeting at the Contra Costa Times...
...Suddenly, what could have been a journalistic feeding frenzy has turned into a trip to the petting zoo for Arnold...
...that he'd mount a last-minute write-in campaign, a rumor that was given oxygen when his own pollster quietly asked about potential write-in support in a Prop 49 poll...
Vol. 8 • October 2002 • No. 7
