When the film star Arnold Schwarzenegger used an appearance on a TV chat show to announce his candidacy for the California governorship, there was reportedly considerable surprise. This seems odd. The former body-builder and star of the Terminator movies is following in the path of former cowboy film star Ronald Reagan. Schwarzenegger has been a Republican Party activist for some time and in 1990 was appointed by George W. Bush’s father to be president of the US Council for Physical Fitness and Sport. Though the pollsters are still trying to work out if Schwarzenegger can oust the Democratic incumbent, Gray Davis, the first reaction is that the film star is in with a good chance.
Gov. Davis is already on the ropes. After winning a further term in 2002, he has been subjected to the humiliation of a recall vote. California’s finances are in trouble. Davis faces a $38 billion deficit and stands accused of serious mismanagement.
Schwarzenegger has yet to make clear how he could turn the problems around. However there is a sense in which, in California, more than anywhere else, it is the man rather than the policies that will count. Davis is an uncharismatic professional politician who entered the field after honorable service in Vietnam. Schwarzenegger, by contrast, simply drips charisma. If the California Republican political establishment closes ranks behind the film star, he could enjoy the same level of success as his cowboy film star predecessor. Reagan’s great talent was that, over and above his own conservative reflexes, his politics were informed by powerful Republican lobbies who created the scripts which he then delivered with all the skill of a top box-office star.
Reagan’s success heralded the arrival of presentation as the prime consideration for successful politics. In a sound-bite media age, political savvy by itself is no longer enough. A high degree of stage management is necessary and who is better qualified to walk into the limelight and deliver the right lines on cue than a professional actor?
The Reagan parallel will not however run all the way to the White House. Because Schwarzenegger was not born a US citizen, he is ineligible to hold the nation’s highest office. That is not to say, however, that from a power-base in California, he could not exert considerable influence on the Washington establishment. It will very much depend on whether the same powerful behind-the-scenes forces in the Republican Party, which once backed Ronald Reagan, see any point in throwing their weight behind Schwarzenegger. Yet for an America that seems to be finding it increasingly hard to separate reality from Hollywood’s fictions, it must be hoped that Schwarzenegger is given the thumbs down by California voters and is sent back to his day job in the film studios.
