Total Recall

Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has entered the race for governor of California, one wonders a few things:
1. Is he popular because of the roles he has played?
2. Is he popular because of his great political acumen?
3. Is he popular because Gray Davis isn’t?

The relative political success of Fred “Gopher” Grandy and Ben “Cooter” Jones would seem to indicate that voters are able to separate the actor from the role. However, both Grandy and Jones ran for office long after their most famous TV roles had faded from public view and both tapped into the deep roots of their constituencies. Grandy was a moderate Republican from Iowa, which is, if anything, a bastion of moderate Republicanism, and Jones was a populist Democrat from Georgia who lost his seat to none other than Newt Gingrich–following perfectly trends in the South away from populist Democrats toward conservative Republicans.

Schwarzenegger has a movie in the theaters right now and has spent little to no time distinguishing himself from his roles. He has made no specific policy statements, mentioning instead that politicians have “failed” the people and he would make sure he’d work for “the people.” This is political rhetoric so vague that it could have been made by anyone from Joe McCarthy to Joe Stalin, militating against number two above.

Number three doesn’t help much either, given the polls, and is not a positive in favor of The Arnold.

That leaves us with the disconcerting notion that, indeed, Schwarzenegger’s popularity is because of the roles he plays, which are, primarily, evil or at least very, very violent (as one NPR commentator put it “a robot that kills people”). What this means is that, to the people of California, leadership looks like a big guy who is excessively violent. And, so says the proverb, as California goes, so goes the nation.