I was working in Minnesota during the Jesse Ventura governorship. He started out as an iconoclast like Jerry Brown, eschewing pomp, ruffling feathers, looking for ways to cut red tape. I especially liked the Jesse Ventura Action Figures that were on sale in all the gift shops: Scoutmaster! Navy Seal! Wrestler! Governor!
But power corrupts and eventually he folded. The last thing I remember was the entire state staring dumbfounded as, now get this: Governor Jesse Ventura hired a bodyguard!
Arnold Schwarzenegger has absolutely no political savvy. He doesn't know an energy crisis from an affirmative action. He plays a complete buffoon and asshole in public. Despite our great disappointment in Gray Davis, California remains a Democratic stronghold and Arnold is a Republican. He's an Austrian in a state with huge immigrant and second-generation populations with roots in Mexico, China, El Salvador, Vietnam, Philippines, Korea, Italy, Armenia, Iran, and Palestine. Do you see Austria listed in there anywhere?
I do not believe that the state Republican Party would nominate him unless they felt it was an election in which they didn't have a prayer anyway, so they were just tossing a bone to the Hollywood lobby. I definitely do not believe that a majority of the voters would vote for him.
Ronald Reagan had a much different aura. In his movies he played the average guy struggling valiantly to do the right thing. He came across in real life like your dear old uncle. He and his wife affected a regal stance. And he got the backlash vote in a year when the older voters were terrified of pot-smokin', free-lovin', race-mixin', draft card-burnin', whale-huggin', motorcycle ridin', liberals, also a year in which most of those very people were too young to vote!
His most famous quote, "When you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all," simply does not sit well in a state where virtually everyone of every race, religion, and political party considers redwood trees to be California's gift to the Universe. We will never be so easily fooled by an actor again.
