Man in the News: Arnold Schwarzenegger
By Matthew Garrahan
Published: July 3 2009 19:01 | Last updated: July 3 2009 19:01
When Arnold Schwarzenegger sat down at his desk in Sacramento this week the California governor displayed a steeliness that even the Terminator, his most famous film character, would have admired.
Mr Schwarzenegger’s state this week started its new fiscal year amid its worst financial crisis, as its deficit ballooned to $26bn. Yet, rather than sign a bill that California’s Democrats were pushing as a short-term answer to the state’s woes, he vetoed the proposal as soon it arrived in his office. As a result, the home of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and America’s biggest agricultural crop has edged closer to fiscal meltdown.
Funding is about to be slashed for key public services, while IOUs worth $3bn are being issued to people and companies owed money by California. Public employees were this week told to take three days of unpaid holiday each month and state-funded programmes that help the elderly, disabled and jobless are under threat.
Yet the cigar-loving Republican has not wavered. Fed up with California’s unwillingness to live within its means, he is insisting that cuts in wasteful spending and a broad streamlining of government form the basis of any budget agreement.
In rejecting recent proposals from the California legislature as mere “partial solutions”, the former movie star has set the scene for the most tumultuous period of his political life.
Friends do not doubt his ability to pull California out of the mire. “There has been no challenge in his life that he hasn’t been able to overcome,” says Robert Earl, who founded the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain with Mr Schwarzenegger and fellow action stars Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis.
Colleagues express similar faith in Mr Schwarzenegger, whose poll ratings have tumbled as the crisis has intensified. “The thing that makes him so effective is that he’s not afraid to fail,” says Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff.
She points to his overwhelming 2005 defeat in a series of special ballots on his plans to reform pensions for state workers. “He went for broke and he failed spectacularly,” she says. “But the day after he picked himself up and told voters: ‘I heard you’. My jaw dropped – I had never seen a politician do that.” She cites his success in bringing in tough new car emissions standards, copied by the Obama administration, as a sign of his ambition.
She has Mr Schwarzenegger to thank for her love of cigars, with the pair often lighting up in the smoking tent outside his Sacramento office, where they chew over the issues of the day. “He got me hooked,” she says.
Like many of the governor’s closest confidants, Ms Kennedy is a Democrat. In a sign that Mr Schwarzenegger is not cut from the same political cloth as neocon Republicans, she is also openly gay.
Maria Shriver, Mr Schwarzenegger’s wife, and a member of the Kennedy dynasty, and David Crane, his chief economic adviser, are also Democrats. Mr Crane became a friend 30 years ago, when Mr Schwarzenegger, once dubbed “the Austrian Oak”, was known for his bodybuilding rather than his acting or political careers.
“The governor and I had these vigorous discussions about economic policy ... even though I was a Democrat we basically agreed on everything.”
It was the turn of the 1980s and Mr Schwarzenegger was embarking on a movie career, starring in muscle-bound action films such as Conan the Barbarian and Commando. According to Mr Crane, he was also a keen student of Milton Friedman during this period.
In the intervening time, Mr Schwarzenegger “fleshed out his political views”, says Mr Crane. But even 30 years ago his political ambition was striking. “I could have told you then that he would run for office one day.”
Away from politics, Mr Schwarzenegger likes to paint. He used to own a restaurant near Venice Beach, and loves food. “At lunch today he remarked that the chef had made something that he dreamed up,” says Mr Crane.
Mr Schwarzenegger always sets aside time to “relax and think and talk”, Mr Crane says. But he shies away from the glitzy Hollywood party set and has the same circle of close friends he had 30 years ago. He and Ms Shriver have four children – their eldest daughter just started at the University of Southern California – and the family is a fixture in the Los Angeles community.
Mr Schwarzenegger says he fell in love with politics in 1968. He had arrived in the US from his native Austria to pursue a bodybuilding career, when he heard Richard Nixon speak. “He sounded like a breath of fresh air,” he told the Republican convention in 2004.
He is unafraid to stir up controversy – he once called political opponents “girly men” – but this seems to be simply a fondness for speaking his mind, rather than a deliberate attempt to shock. Two years ago he told an interviewer that he had never taken drugs, despite having been filmed smoking marijuana in a 1970s bodybuilding documentary. “That’s not a drug,” he told GQ magazine. “That’s a leaf.”
He often jokes about his willingness to work with opponents. In the twilight of George W. Bush’s presidency he was one of a handful of Republicans saying the party had to find common ground with Democrats. “It can’t be that hard,” he said in one speech. “I sleep with a Democrat every night.”
Despite his past willingness to work with Democrats, in recent days he has refused to budge.
This is Mr Schwarzenegger’s sixth year as California governor, so at the end of 2010 he will have to leave office under term limits. With 18 months left, some critics have dubbed him a lame duck, following the rejection by voters in May of a string of proposals he had hoped would restore the state to fiscal health. That defeat seems to have hardened his approach to the crisis.
“The first priority is fixing the budget but it seems as though the governor’s priority is fixing his legacy,” says Karen Bass, speaker of California’s state assembly. “I understand his concern, but for God’s sake, we need to deal with what we have right now.”
Mr Schwarzenegger disagrees. “The state and its people have to make major sacrifices,” he told the FT recently. “There are no two ways about it.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
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