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Jewish World Review August 18, 2003 / 20 Menachem-Av, 5763

James Lileks

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Assessing the Schwarzenegger Factor in Republicanism


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | In the forgettable movie "Eraser," Arnold strapped on two guns the size of telephone poles for the final battle. Cool! Each gun had a floodlight that lit up the set like movie-premier searchlights -- wicked cool! Only one problem: When you saw him coming toward you, all you had to do was shoot between the lights.

An apt metaphor, perhaps, for Schwarzenegger's campaign. He's not gunning from the left or the right. What counts is the center, and this is where Arnold resides.

This has caused much lamenting and rending of garments on the ironclad right; he's not this, he's not that, he said this, he smoked pot, he has no solid position on the treaty of Ghent, etc. The social-issue wing of the Republicans has its checklist: You must castigate abortion, glower at the gays, gag at the sewage the entertainment industry produces, and above all you must believe that the Kennedys always wear shoes in public to hide their cloven hooves.

Arnold fails these tests. He's pro-choice. We can be reasonably sure that he jokes with gay make-up artists instead of punching them in the jaw on general principle. His movies are notable for the funny lines he says before he blows nine-inch holes in his adversaries' skulls. He does nude scenes in his Terminator movies, for heaven's sake; he might be the first governor whose granite glutes have appeared in Panavision all over the nation. He is literally sleeping with the Kennedy family. And he calls himself a Republican?

Sure. It doesn't really take that much. A little populism, a brief salaam in the direction of Frederick Hayek, some furrowed-brow remarks over the need to lift the regulatory burden, some swipes at the coddled and ossified elements of the civil-service sector (the "special interests" he keeps talking about) and you get to wear the big R on your super-hero costume.

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Arnold may not be a rock-ribbed conservative. But consider this: If he didn't feel affinity for the basic tenets of the party, he wouldn't be a Republican. Being a Democrat in Hollywood is the path of least resistance; it's as natural as breathing air or complaining about the help. Sure, Arnold's a liberal variant of the Republican idea, but that just means he's electable in a liberal state. He isn't the end of Republican come-back in the Golden State; he'd be the beginning.

As political theater goes, it's quite entertaining. But it's all such a bad idea. Recalls ought to be reserved for truly bad officials, and it's not as if they caught Davis sawing up prostitutes in a cheap motel room. Yes, he may not have been forthcoming on the details of the budget deficit -- imagine that. A politician who gilds the lily and doesn't admit he borrowed it from the florist's.

Recalls ought to be reserved for the characters you find in a Thomas Nast cartoon, and the proponents of this fandango shouldn't be surprised to find it used against Republicans elsewhere.

But you couldn't tell the impeachment boosters that, either. Hey! Impeaching Clinton is a bad precedent! "I'm sorry, your lips were moving, and some sounds came out, but it didn't quite make sense. Bad precedent? Of course! Clinton is the worst precedent we've ever had."

Will Arnold win? Well, he'll bring new voters to the polls -- we saw this in Minnesota with Jesse Ventura. People who never voted will find it cool to vote for Arnold, and even though they might not be the most sophisticated participants in the process, they'll probably intuit that a vote isn't just a thumbs-up statement. It means something. Yelling "I bought your video" doesn't really put an actor in your debt, but shouting "I voted for you" somehow does.

In any case, it'll change a few minds about the possibilities of politics. All their life they saw politicians as nothing more than nerdy bloodless grinbots, and now here's this guy: a giant with a gap-tooth smile smoking a Montecristo the size of Gray Davis' shin bone. Heck yeah!

One problem: Who will be the lieutenant governor, aka the sidekick? No one who's seen Arnold's movies will volunteer for the job.

That guy always gets killed in the first 20 minutes.


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JWR contributor James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Comment by clicking here.

Up

08/08/03: No wonder Howard ‘Two Covers’ Dean gets all the buzz
08/04/03: Expect bad news for the foreseeable future
07/28/03: Despot's Deserts
07/21/03: No winners in this game of gotcha
07/14/03: Doing the right thing in Liberia may not be the right thing to do
06/27/03: On feet in Democratic mouths
06/16/03: The real story behind Hillary's book
06/09/03:America's new mission was and remains: Extirpating the flaming nutballs and the societies that nurture them
06/03/03: The Constitution as gag order
05/23/03: Sometimes the theme of world events is chaos itself
05/16/03: Newspapers are only human, after all
05/13/03: What McCarthy messed up
05/06/03: Still think the International Criminal Court was a good idea?
04/03/03: The world is ending, the world is ending! Doesn't anybody care!? Why won't anybody listen!?
03/14/03: Kerry and the Dems are banking on American electorate's tendancy to forget history
02/28/03: Roadmap to peace?
02/13/03: We live in an age where the poet has been cast out from the halls of power --- sob, sob
02/10/03: Found: League for International Justice and Peace talking points
01/30/03: The US can go to war whenever it likes for its own reasons, and all the UN can do is pass more worthless paper
01/23/03: People who'd volunteer for the Iraqi army if they saw Saddam wearing a "Free Mumia" button
01/16/03: One of those head vs. heart things
12/27/02: Whistleblowers?
01/06/02: The second year of this jangled millennium
11/16/01: Attack of the 'Patriotism police' and other Hollywood fare
11/12/01: From the bleats of dismay
10/30/01: Osama and the Genie
10/08/01: "We can stop the Bush Death Juggernaut"
11/04/01: America, loathe or it leave it
09/25/01: Do the Europeans actually think that the war on murderous zealotry will be furthered by undercutting America?
08/27/01: If the economy is in a funk, why aren't we dancing?
08/14/01: Dubyah's embarrassing presidential vacation
08/10/01: Hail to our co-chiefs?
08/03/01: Constitution: George the Uniter picked a doozy to unify detractors
07/25/01: The real reason why we need missile defense (What those uppity policy wonks won't tell you!)
06/18/01: Paining the egalitarian soul
06/01/01: One of the stranger indexes you'll ever hear about
05/21/01: One man's toke is another man's snort
05/08/01: Republicans want poisoned water
04/23/01: We bleat as we're sheared
04/10/01: Boys will be boys. And that's the problem
04/06/01: Pity the anti-American Left, they're gonna have a hard time on this one
03/26/01: You've been warned
03/16/01: The GOP's inexplicable desire to fold
02/23/01: Will the Jeb Bush administration attack Saddam in 2011?
02/09/01: In search of the the first ashtray thrown by a member of the First Family
02/06/01: Can you say 'Ayatollah Bush'?
01/24/01: The new Executive Orders
01/22/01: Hey, Dubya: Wanna save Ashcroft? Teach him to rap!
01/09/01: Bubba gets his last licks
01/05/01: The low-down on the coming recession (What those snooty economists won't tell you)
12/23/00: Memo to Dubya: Wanna show who is boss? Nuke 'em!
12/06/00: The Count of Carthage
At the Sore/Loserman Transition HQ
12/01/00: The Count of Carthage
11/28/00: Clinton knows history isn't written by the victors anymore
11/17/00: Chad's the word
11/08/00: The strangest political night
11/07/00: Get ready to return to the Dark Ages

© 2003, James Lileks