US: Arnie has won the big prize, but his troubles may be only beginning, writes Conor O'Clery in Sacramento
There is one public forum in California from which Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger is permanently barred. That is the floor of the 80-member house and 40-member senate in Sacramento's historic capitol building.
Here among the century-old desks equipped with laptop computers, liberal Democrats hold sway. In the governor's office, along a corridor from the gold-domed rotunda, the new incumbent may propose and veto bills, but the legislature can dispose of them and kill vetoes with a two-thirds majority. This is the reality that faces the action movie star next month when he moves into the office with its blue carpet bearing the California motto "Eureka!" (I have found it).
Mr Schwarzenegger wielded a broom at a campaign stop in Sacramento last week as he promised to "clean house" in the Capitol. That was a "good visual", he remarked to reporters at his first press conference on Wednesday.
But the imagery of Hollywood will count for little when Schwarzenegger encounters the screwed-up reality of governing California, a state where citizens have tied the hands of legislators with legal limits on property taxes, mandated education spending and other ballot initiatives.
The Terminator star won populist support for his promise to zap an increase in car tax (from $70 to $210) on his first day, but when he called state senate leader John Burton, he encountered a "difference of opinion" on what was going to happen. Repeal of the car tax requires Democrats to agree to vote down a 1998 law, according to a capitol official who told me, "there has never been a happy marriage between a governor and this legislature".
Scrapping the tax will add $4 billion to a projected $8 billion fiscal overrun, meaning draconian cuts in services. "I told him, 'Man, it's going to be a tough road'," said Burton, a seasoned Democratic partisan. "He said, 'Anything worth doing is tough, it's not going to be easy'."
Everything depended on what Schwarzenegger wanted to do, the senate leader told the Sacramento Bee. "If he wants to take money from the aged, blind and disabled . . . poor women and children, I don't think so - not while I'm around. Once you take that oath of office, unless you're a total whack-a-do, reality sets in and you find out campaign rhetoric can't solve the problem."
Schwarzenegger could get lucky if a tech recovery provides a revenue surge and if he succeeds in getting Burton and other Democrats - who hold a 60 per cent majority in both houses - to co-operate on his plans for cutting services and making California more business-friendly.
With his strong personality and overwhelming celebrity appeal Schwarzenegger at least gets attention. When he telephoned Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein yesterday she hastily broke off a press briefing to take his call. World leaders, from the first President Bush to Nelson Mandela, made congratulatory calls throughout Wednesday to Schwarzenegger, whose fame as an Austrian now matches that of Mozart, Strauss and Sigmund Freud.
When President Bush called, the governor-elect told him he would be asking for "a lot of favours" to help the finances of California, which gets back just 77 cents of every dollar it sends Washington. Senator Edward Kennedy also rang to wish his Republican nephew-in-law well. "The Kennedy family has its own big-tent policy," said the leader of America's most famous Democratic dynasty. One of the enduring images of the campaign was Kennedy's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, mother of Schwarzenegger's wife Maria and founder of the Special Olympics, enveloped in the huge embrace of the actor at a final campaign rally.
This provided a "good visual" for hesitant Democratic voters. It didn't work in San Francisco, however, where 80 per cent of voters rejected the recall. At Democratic Party headquarters in California's liberal redoubt, Mary Jung, who headed the city's "No Recall" campaign, pulled the plug on the TV set as Schwarzenegger declared victory. "We should secede," she fumed, "we're totally surrounded by idiots."
However, Schwarzenegger got more votes state-wide than the No campaign - 3.75 million to 3.56 million - giving him an important legitimacy as he tries to substitute style with substance in his crucial first budget at the end of the year. Legislators in Sacramento also have to take into account that frustrated voters could unseat them if they are seen to be obstructive. In the wake of California's political earthquake, Schwarzenegger is meanwhile adjusting to new realities - such as the unaccustomed silence that greeted him when he walked into his first news conference after the election. "Don't get excited with the applause," he quipped to the reporters.
He made one more promise there that will not be hard to keep, and may be welcomed by some film critics. There will be no more movies, said the actor, who came from Austria 35 years ago, and was wakened on Wednesday morning by his daughter Katherine with the words, "Mr Governor, your coffee is ready."