The Governator is gone.  We are left with an empty husk of a man, devoid of character or content.  But those of us who opposed from the start the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger are not surprised.

The man who SHOULD have been governor was Republican State Senator Tom McClintock – but he took a distant third in the special election.  The Schwarzenegger superstar status swept aside all opponents.

The key to understanding the dramatic swing in Governor Schwarzenegger’s goals is to grasp just why he ran for office.  Quite likely – he was bored with film making.  An aging action actor, Schwarzenegger had all the money and fame a person could wish for, with only a declining film career to look forward to.  

But there was more to it than that.  As he grew older, surely he started thinking about his legacy.  The unique Gray Davis recall election offered Arnold a quick avenue to the governorship – without party politics, a messy primary, or a long, drawn out campaign. 

This opportunity opened up new area of conquest, coupled with the potential to do something more serious and lasting.  Such as reforming government – and getting more buildings and highways named after him.

Aside from the obvious attributes Arnold Schwarzenegger brought to politics – fame, muscles, money – he also brought another attribute that few recognized.  He has no principles.  

Actually, the lack of principles can be quite valuable in politics.  The ability to test the political breeze and to shift with the wind is indeed a valuable (if reprehensible) feature common to most successful politicians.  Spendthrift George W. Bush comes readily to mind.  Ditto for Bill Clinton in his first term in office.

Arnold has another problem – he craves to be liked.  By everybody.  All his adult life he has been an object of adulation – first in bodybuilding and then in acting.  He thought that this superstar status would not only get him elected, but would then allow him to implement whatever changes he deemed appropriate.  At the time he ran for office, there was strong popular support for real reforms, especially for reining in the runaway state government spending. 

But once in office, Arnold faced a hostile, Democrat-controlled legislature.  Initially he talked about bypassing this roadblock, using the initiative process to get the needed reforms.  Problem was, he just couldn’t stand the fact that he was disliked by the Democrats.  Perhaps his Democrat wife and Hollywood friends influenced him in this matter.

So the Terminator negotiated.  He delayed.  And he cancelled reform propositions that already had the needed signatures. 

The Democrats were delighted to play this game, giving some small concessions while the honeymoon period of committed Arnold support slipped away.  If he had come strong with the needed initiative reforms, placing them on the ballot for the regularly scheduled November 2004 election, he might very well have done what he claimed he wanted to do.

By diddling around for an extra year, Arnold lost his momentum, and allowed the public employee labor unions to clean his clock with dishonest but omnipresent advertising.  As a reformer, he failed.

But not to worry.  Arnold didn’t really care that much about those reforms anyway.  He just thought that that was the popular thing to do.  Freed from that delusion, he has now announced plans to become another Pat Brown – on steroids.  The big difference is that Governor Brown paid for his infrastructure largely out of yearly revenue – our Girlie Man will be putting it all on the taxpayers’ charge card.

Arnold is moving to issue mega bonds for any and all infrastructure improvements the state will every need, and many it does NOT need.  No moneysaving reforms to reduce the cost of these projects cost is included. 

For instance, the state’s “prevailing wage” law requires that such government funded construction pay ridiculously high wages – exceeding even the sky-high costs of the federal Davis Bacon Act.  This law drives up the cost of such construction projects 30% or more.

As big as Arnold’s public works shopping list is, NOT included is the proposed FORTY BILLION DOLLARS worth of bonds for the truly looney state high speed rail system, which will probably go to the ballot next year.  Arnold wants to wait until he’s reelected before dropping that bomb!

If Arnold were the tough guy he plays in his movies, he would do three things:

1.      Not run for reelection.

2.      Spend the remainder of his term fighting for the people who put him in office – opposing runaway state spending, pushing for public employee pension reform, improving public education WITHOUT more spending, and opposing more taxes and bonds.

3.      Use the powerful budget line item veto.  Astonishingly, so far he has not.  Gray Davis used it more than Arnold has done.

Instead this Girlie Man is obsessed with “leaving a legacy” to feed his enormous ego.  Doesn’t matter exactly what legacy it is, as long as it sounds good to posterity.  He has only begun the transition to Gray Davis positions – expect more such concessions as the year goes by and the election approaches.  By November, it will be hard to distinguish Arnold from his predecessor.

Indeed, Arnold will be WORSE than Gray Davis.  The GOP legislators fought well against Gray Davis and Democrat spending, often holding their minority group together to block some of the state budget excesses.  But with Republican Governor Schwarzenegger applying pressure for his spending package, the Republican legislators will split, giving the Big Spenders the 2/3 majority needed to pass even bigger and more irresponsible spending plans.