That Arnold Schwarzenegger should declare his candidacy for California's governorship on Wednesday on the Tonight show with Jay Leno says much about a campaign that is already more showbiz than politics, and more about moneyed interests than a real exercise of popular control of the fifth largest economy in the world.
Governor Gray Davis is the first governor in the US in 80 years to face a recall vote, the mechanism having been triggered by the collection of over two million signatures, funded in large measure by Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa (professional collectors were said to be on $1 a name). On October 7th voters will now get a chance to answer two questions: whether the governor should be recalled, and, if so, who should replace him?
Mr Davis, a Democrat in what is now a Democratic state, is so uncharismatic as to be distinctly un-Californian and has presided over the ballooning of the state deficit to some $38 billion. But, although he has taken most of the flak, with approval ratings running now below 25 per cent, much of the blame can be laid at the door of the state's convoluted constitutional requirements enacted by a public obsessed with popular accountability through referenda. Budgets may be passed in the legislature only by a two-thirds majority, giving a deeply partisan Republican minority blocking power. And that minority has refused either to vote for any tax increase, or to make realistic proposals for spending cuts. A successor to Mr Davis, whether Republican or Democrat, will face exactly the same problems.
Mr Davis's refusal to jump before he is pushed has given rise to real problems in the mainstream Democratic camp, uncomfortable with the idea of nominating new names while the governor remains in office. Yesterday one popular alternative, Senator Diane Feinstein, ruled out her own candidacy on precisely such grounds, although the liberal columnist Arianna Huffington did throw her hat in the ring as a Democrat, as has Mr Davis's deputy, Lieut. Governor Cruz Bustamante.
This is no small field. Already 500 candidates have declared, ranging from the pornographer Larry Flynt to a variety of idle millionaires. Name recognition will help Mr Schwarzenegger, a liberal Republican, to appeal to Democratic voters. Although untested in public office, he has the virtue of being a political outsider in a state jaded with politics. And he has money. "I will go to Sacramento, and I will clean house," he promised journalists. But all the Terminator's powers may not be enough for that Augean task or, as President Bush hopes, to return the state to the Republican fold.