To compensate for what he lacked as a child, Arnold developed an insatiable hunger for love, applause and affirmation. Last year at Madison Square Garden his cup overflowed. He savoured the moment for it would not last.
He had been elected by a landslide to solve California’s budget crisis and financial solvency. As 2004 came to an end, the “governator” had a list of accomplishments to celebrate. He had not hidden behind his popularity to avoid contentious issues. He vetoed a bill raising the minimum wage, arguing that it would only hurt business growth when he was trying to accelerate the economy.
Although consistently pro-business, he confounded those who sought to pigeonhole him ideologically. During the campaign he had been wrongly accused of planning to abolish the state Environmental Protection Agency. As governor, he approved bills to cut automotive greenhouse gas emissions and to permit hybrid cars to drive in car pool lanes. He created a 25m-acre nature conservancy in the Sierra Nevada. But he was in a cleft stick. He had wrung concessions from teachers, local governments and other groups, but he could not go back and ask more of them.
His day began earlier than almost everyone else’s and ended late, but he was rarely alone. His favourite place was his smoking tent in a patio outside the Capitol offices. He liked nothing better than a fine illegal Cuban cigar. He did not inhale but used it as a neat bit of anti-PC, agitprop by the action man of Hollywood.
His most crucial adviser was his wife Maria. She sat in on meetings that politicians’ wives had not attended before and gave her forthright opinion. Despite her Democrat credentials as the niece of JFK, she was not the liberal goad that her right-wing critics imagined. Some of Arnold’s staff rustled with nervousness when she appeared. “There’s a lot of ‘Who the hell are you?’ ” she admitted. She was so painfully thin that some of those close to her worried about her health. Her husband, in contrast, was “the happiest he’s ever been”, Maria said wistfully.
As much as Arnold loved Maria, he would never have done for her what she did for him. She had essentially given up a career that she loved as a star television presenter with NBC so that he could follow his destiny.
Arnold’s honeymoon with the press was coming under strain by last autumn. His rejection of tax rises on the grounds that “people are consistently against taxes” was characterised as the words of “a scared politician who’s a follower”. Arnold bristled. “I promised when I ran for office not to raise taxes,” he said, vowing: “I only listen to my own instincts.”
On January 5 this year the governor gave his second state-of-the-state address. A year before he had been greeted with thunderous applause; now his reception was more subdued. He was no longer perceived primarily as a creature of Hollywood. He had transformed himself into a consummate politician. The legislators listened intently for he was attempting to wrest power from some of the state’s most powerful constituencies, including the politicians themselves.
He was seeking radical reforms, proposing legislation that would cut expenditures across the board when they rose above revenues. It was a declaration of war.
He inveighed against the generous pension plans that were one of the primary reasons why Californians took government jobs. He wanted to infuse the discipline of the marketplace into the public schools and sought to introduce the same discipline into a Californian political system. He intended to change it into a genuine two-party state, not an impregnable fiefdom of one party or the other.
His speech made it clear that this was a man willing to take risks that few contemporary politicians would contemplate. Millions were adamantly opposed to parts of his agenda and began to pick many of his proposals apart; his detractors gave him little quarter.
The very boldness of his assertions had come back to haunt him. He had promised that he would have an audit that would uncover massive waste, but he found that it was not institutional corruption that was bleeding the state dry but the very structure of government.
He had promised Californians that he would “tear up the credit card and throw it away”, but he had kept one that he planned to use to borrow $6 billion over the next two years. He stood waist deep in millions of dollars of campaign contributions almost exclusively from business, and he was willing to stick it to almost everyone except California’s corporations.
For the first time Arnold’s popularity began to decline but he remained disdainful of those who attacked him. He revved up the rhetoric a few more notches. “We’re going right where all the evil is and we’re going to fix this problem once and for all,” he told the Republican faithful.
Last month he appealed over the heads of California’s establishment, calling a referendum on his reforms. “How can we just stand around while our debt grows each year by billions of dollars?” he demanded. “If you break your arm you don’t wait until your next physical. You get it fixed now.”
He is making three core demands: spending controls that would trigger automatic cuts if revenue fell below projected income and authority to cut programmes unilaterally; allowing retired judges to redraw the state’s electoral map; and compelling teachers to work five years rather than two before they receive tenure protection.
Arnold has single-handedly created a political drama worthy of Hollywood. If he wins, say local commentators, he will be ranked among the state’s most transformative governors. But as his popularity has fallen in six months from an awesome 65% to 37%, much is in question. Last week came reports that upon becoming governor, Schwarzenegger had signed a secret deal with American Media, the owner of bodybuilding magazines and tabloid newspapers. The deal brings him at least $8m over five years in exchange for being executive editor of the two muscle magazines, a position that is largely honorary. It was a devastating revelation at a time when he was already in trouble.
The last action hero has stepped off the screen. He is an actor still, but an actor within history, the verdict of his performance rendered by 35m Californians. If Arnold fails it will not be for want of daring.
Edited extracts from Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Laurence Leamer, published by Sidgwick & Jackson, £18.99
