[Mb-civic] Sorry Arnold, No Two-Picture Deal

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-
morrison26jan26,1,5723843.column?coll=la-news-comment-
opinions

LA Times
January 26, 2005
Patt Morrison:
Sorry Arnold, No Two-Picture Deal

Now I know what was mighty enough to shove the Super Bowl from 
its hallowed last-Sunday-in-January perch: Arnold Schwarzenegger. 
Instead of watching an over-hyped, overpriced sporting event called 
the Super Bowl this weekend, Americans can watch a made-for-TV 
movie about an over-hyped, overpriced political event called "See 
Arnold Run."



The film account of how Schwarzenegger campaigned for his titles 
of Mr. Olympia and Mr. Governor should be worth watching if only to 
marvel at the likes of Cruz Bustamante and campaign consultants 
George Gorton and Don Sipple portrayed on film.

"See Arnold Run" will probably get decent numbers, which doesn't 
mean they'll ever make its natural sequel, "See Arnold Run 
California." Campaigning is thrilling and visual; governing is murky 
and equivocal. The Schwarzenegger quandary is that the more 
interest in government he generates, the more people take notice if 
— when — he screws up. 

He may be the outsized outsider as a candidate, but even 
Schwarzenegger must fit into the constitutional paint-by-number 
outlines of governance. What producers will be clamoring for filmic 
moments like these, from Schwarzenegger's Sacramento?

• "Attack on the Girlie Men": When legislators, that other branch of 
government (remember them? You elected them too) balk at doing 
Schwarzenegger's bidding, the governor — evidently too timid to 
just shoot up the Assembly — threatens to go straight to the voters 
and call a $50- or $60-million election to get his way.

• "Conan vs. the RNs": To Schwarzenegger, bad-guy "special 
interests" are those that don't give money to his causes. At the 
annual governor's conference on women in December, he ridiculed 
as "special interests" nurses protesting his hospital staffing policies, 
and some women at the conference were dumb enough to cheer 
him instead of the women working among bedpans and blood.

• "Hope Sinks": Everything is under the dangling budget blade 
except tax breaks for the loaded. State workers who care for the old 
and infirm get wage cuts from $10-plus an hour to $6.75, minimum 
wage. But yacht buyers can keep ducking sales tax, and big 
companies can still move offshore and dodge paying what they owe 
the state. If you can buy a yacht, you can pay the flipping sales tax.

• "Worse Santa": Schwarzenegger plays Kris Kringle when the 
cameras are on and then leaves it to his staff to play Grinch 
afterward. He was all sympathy at La Conchita, promising the 
landslide-stricken townsfolk, "I'm going to help them so they can 
come back." Where's the money to make it happen? Maybe he 
wrote a personal check off camera.

• "Payday the 13th": Schwarzenegger hallelujahs government 
reform but talks over, under and around the biggest reform of all: 
Proposition 13, which sticks every new homeowner with bigger 
property taxes but uses a snake-oil-slick definition of "selling" to let 
businesses dodge reassessment even when they change hands. 
Disneyland pays about a nickel a square foot, Capitol Records pays 
about a dime — and a brand-new homeowner may pay $2. Why 
should only murder and Prop. 13 have no statute of limitations?

• "Rich and Richer": Already slicker and quicker at fundraising than 
Gray Davis ever was, Schwarzenegger plans to finance his political 
will, and make an end run around campaign finance reform in spirit 
and letter, with a coalition of his friends called Citizens to Save 
California. It can legally rack up tens of millions on short notice for 
his initiatives so he can bang the celebrity drum and render the 
Legislature impotent (well, more impotent than it makes itself). 

• "Throw the Endodontists From the Train": Schwarzenegger 
overrides his own reform commission to try to abolish the state's 
medical, dental and pharmacy boards but keep the California Film 
Commission, ornamented with his pals, like Clint Eastwood and 
Danny DeVito.

This year's list of Oscar nominations came down Tuesday morning. 
Schwarzenegger's name is not now nor has it ever been on that list. 
But after a life in pictures, the governor of California should have 
mastered one premise as well as — perhaps better than — any of 
the Academy's choices: Unless the original is a hit, you don't get a 
shot at a sequel. 



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