Schwarzenegger: The Verdict.

The guy was a fucking unmitigated disaster for California. Outside of his support for green technology and refusal to defend Prop 8 in court--which may make it impossible for those bastards to mount an appeal--I honestly don't see anything positive about the last six years and change in his terms in office.

Not only did he hold two completely unnecessary and expensive elections when he failed to bully the Democratic majority in the state legislature into adopting some of his more draconian New Hoover bullshit, but he also led an assault on public services, state workers, and the CCC, CSU, and UC systems. Fuck this guy. Given that the Republicans hate him because he wasn't batshit insane enough for their liking, I hope he never holds elected office again.

I can't wait for the spin should a Republican get run out on a rail..."well, he wasn't a REAL Republican, that is why he failed!" See "Bush, GW"

I love the guy, but if you've listened to the TOTAL RECALL commentary track, you know he doesn't sound particularly bright. All the same, I'm fascinated to hear this discussion. As a non Californian, I have a hard time arriving at a conclusion about his tenure in office that I feel is based on a well informed opinion. He looks like a tragic failure from the outside, but maybe you guys see things differently

PS Does the fact that California is in dire straights spell the end to any further political ambitions for Mr Schwarzenegger?

Schwarznegger is plenty bright. The man's bucket list in his early 20s, as a farmboy in Austria was essentially: Become bodybuilding superstar phenomenon. Become an American. Become an A-list hollywood action hero, and then get into politics.

And I could swear marrying a Kennedy was somewhere in there.

None of that means that he's particularly intelligent, just that he was successful at things which do not necessarily require intelligence. Despite his troubled history with women, I happen to be a fan. However, if you listen to him speak about one subject at length (like on the TOTAL RECALL commentary track), you realize that he's an affable guy but by no means qualified to run the 8th largest economy in the world

He also proposed billions in tax increases. This is the fundamental problem in California (and really the country, just writ large in the Golden State). Both sides are so entrenched that ANY cuts to the public sector and ANY increase in taxes are met with immediate wrath and vengeance. Hence, the Governators unpopularity across the board.

CA will be in a state of perpetual crisis until candidate selection is wrested away from the primary extremists and the surfeit of direct democracy is reined in. The government can't really do much when the people have mandated base-line service increases alongside tax caps. Prop 8 should indicate that direct government, by electorate, is a really bad idea. The country was intended as a republic for a reason.

Given the history of this forum, when did you reach the conclusion that intelligence or qualifications matter in politics, c.f., Ronald Reagan?

Any support for a revive the GOP movement headed by the cast of The Expendables?

I didn't. That's why I stated that having ticked "become a politician" off his bucket list is not necessarily an indicator that the man is intelligent. What I do think though is that intelligence is probably a good thing to have for management purposes when you intend to run the largest and most complex state in America, and the 8th largest economy in the world.
No.

It's not that he "ticked become a politician off his bucket list" that signifies intelligence, it's that a man of very modest upbringing, outlined a very ambitious plan from his youth, that involved three major milestones, and then executed them accordingly - this requires dedication and wits. Besides I don't think a Total Recall commentary is enough to judge his intelligence by - besides that he's pretty bright in his interviews.

Now, now. A person's commentary on a Verhoeven film is totally a reliable barometer of intelligence. My respect for Elizabeth Berkley skyrocketed when I heard her existentialist interpretation of her pool sex scene with Kyle MacLachlan on the Showgirls: Fully Exposed Edition DVD.

Doesn't he have a degree in economics?

I think the guy is plenty intelligent, and in an impossible position. He's as non-partisan as possible in one of the most partisan states in the union, and for that he has my respect.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar...on/op-arnold27

Yeah... no.

His successful push for non-partisan primaries should be proof enough, but evidently you have an axe to grind. A lot of the prison reform stuff is far-reaching and important as well.

Damn I saw the thread title and thought someone was re-making Sidney Lumet's The Verdict with Schwarzenegger playing the drunken lawyer!

Arnold went in with great intentions but he simply could not charm, persuade or bully our esteemed State Legislature into acting with any kind of rationality or common sense.

The political culture in the state needs to change: you can't have entrenched interests re-railing all attempts to reduce the State payroll or pension , and stifle all attempts to raise taxes at the same time. At the base level, the people of California really need to get over their "I got mine, fuck you!" mentality.

In agreement with Cylon.

I am by no means a right-wing kind of guy. But the idea of shared-sacrifice is an idea that is entirely left out of the debate. Yes, I want the private sector to pay its share, but the private-sector is fucked right now (thanks Fed!). The public sector has got to give some ground, and on that count, it looks like Arnold will have made some headway.

http://www.economist.com/node/16438779

To think that in an alternate universe, this thread is called "Coleman: The veredict"...or "Gallagher: The veredict"

The Republican Party specializes in abusing jungle primary systems. If you think that it was non-partisan to go for that, you're kind of not seeing the point of going for it.

Most of the districts in California are safe for incumbents. A jungle primary system gives conservatives a shot at acutally competing in the progressive districts. Citizens v. United gives corporate interests the ability to buy elections. What Schwarzenegger did was deal a death blow to the progressive politics of California.

Also, if you harbor any thought that he's non-partisan in any way, look at his political team. It's largely the same team that ran McCain/Palin 2008. He's also a huge Nixon fan. The man is very much a Republican. The worst kind of Republican.

Compared to who we would have gotten Gray Davis's Lt Governor Cruz Bustamante Ahnold was a godsend.

This state is just fucked period.

Could be that his thick accent makes him sound dumber to some.

I think that's a big part of it. Recently he was quoted about the Fire Season that is kicking off in the northern part of the state:

"When tha forest fires start it's not like you get one fire. You get more than one fire. You get a LOT of fires. Maybe 2,000 fires!" (pretty close to a quote)

The Reagan fans are the worst kind of Republicans. If the Republican party were full of Nixon Republicans we probably would have gotten a decent health care bill passed, and have a more solid environmental policy in this country.

From my perspective the gutting of the state education budget is the worst thing that's gone down under Schwarzenegger. His environmental record has been unusually good for a Republican (higher than the two other republican governors since 1975. Hell, Meg Whitman was attacking his policies as 'environmental extremism' in her primary ads.), and I do respect his staying out of the Prop 8 thing, except to ask Judge Walker to lift the suspension on same sex marriages after Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional. His respect for the judiciary in general earns him a fair few points.

I wouldn't vote for him if were to go for re-election, but I don't think he's been the spectacular fuck up that everybody was expecting he'd be when he won the recall election.

To Cuchulain, any kind of Republican is the worst kind of Republican.

I've mentioned here before that Nixon is, by post-Reagan standards, a member of the fringe of progressivism--which is all sorts of depressing--but what makes him that isn't what gets him mentioned by Schwarzenegger.

His political message and character are what get brought up all the time by him, i.e. he's a fan of the guy in the same way that Anne Coulter is a fan of the guy. While he was a way better policymaker, Nixon and Reagan were cut from the same evil cloth personality-wise, which is why Nixon was a Reagan White House insider. A guy who likes Nixon for his fucking personality is just as fucked in the head and evil as a guy who likes Reagan for any reason at all.

This exactly. He was just more of the same supply side vampirism and kind of a disaster for the state. Don't blame me. I voted for Gary Coleman.

How so?

From what I pick up in the UK (which is pretty limited) isn't the Californian public education system being systematically torn down whilst Ahnuld is demanding that the federal government bail California out to the tune of $8 billion or he will be forced to cut (eliminate?) health and welfare programs?

That sounds like a pretty good reason to label him a failure.

All attempts to reduce State government spending = blocked by the State legislature.

All attempts to raise revenue: blocked by the State legislature (although Arnold did manage to take money intended for municipalities)

Current budget shortfall: $25 Billion

The Education thing has to be a heart breaker for the Governator, since that was his number one priority coming into office.

The Republican Party in California is pretty much owned by the prison guards' union, which is currently the biggest lobbying interest in the state. It's the reason that they have such a hard-on for laws that do things like get law enforcement to go after non-violent drug users rather than dealers and support fucked up border policy. You have to keep the prison-industrial-complex fed. (If you look at the state's spending in graph form, the prison-industrial-complex-related spending spikes at exactly the point at which public education spending declines. It is directly siphoning off our education dollars. It's the reason we've built one university and something like a dozen prisons this decade.)

The reason that has such an impact in a blue state is that the legacy of Prop 8 essentially gives the minority party in the state legislature a procedural gun to point at the head of the majority, which it uses. Every single fucking year. And they openly admit that is their approach to governing, using those aspects of our state constitution to effectively engage in minority rule, which is ludicrously undemocratic.

It's the reason we've never had a fucking budget passed on time since Prop 13. Passed. Not only is Prop 13 bad law that is pretty transparently aimed at gutting public services and giving private interests more power in the state, it's enforced by the most selfish and dumbest cunts to walk the earth in our fine state.

prison-industrial-complex hahahaha

This thread is gold. Keep up the good work folks.

You're an asshole, Sniake.

We're the only oil-producing state that does not tax the oil companies. Prop 13 has frozen the property taxes of big corporations back to 1970s levels. Multinational corporations that exist here do not pay taxes here. They're given incredibly generous sweetheart deals using that old chestnut, "If we tax them they'll leave!" Schwarzenegger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, they're all like cannibals who live to feed the flesh and blood of Californians to the elite.

Arnold has NOT been a friend to schools. Since he took office he took ZERO steps to help the public school and college system. He is a friend of big business and an enemy of everyone else, period. The one thing I give him credit for is his steady support for environmental sanity.

I started grad school in the Cal State system last fall and can confirm firsthand the devastation California's economy has wrought. All part-time and adjunct faculty were fired, and the full-time professors took on their respective workloads but were given a pay cut and forced to take nine furlough days throughout the semester.

Meanwhile, tuition's gone up, up and away. I've been living hand-to-mouth for two years now while paying my way through school and should be able to graduate debt-free, but I've given up on becoming a college professor. The mistreatment they've been subjected to is unconscionable.

We got a RAW DEAL with him as governor.

Don't forget Prop 13 caps property taxes for everyone...so there is a huge "interest group" of Real Estate Assholes ( individual property owners who own rental units) who will scream blue murder if there is any hint that their taxes go up.

I've discussed this a lot with people, namely my parents who were both part of the whole "me generation" that rejoiced in Prop 13, and if people won't let that go (and there is a decent argument to be made for people on fixed incomes), my thing is CLOSE THE CORPORATE LOOPHOLE! Corporations have no rational argument for being included in Prop 13 protection. While I think Prop 13 in toto is what has all but destroyed what used to be the best public education system in the country and would like to see it overturned, I'd be happy with just the corporate loophole being closed.

ps. a university education used to be FREE and great in California until Reagan, the "me generation" and Prop 13. *&^% them.