Schwarzenegger’s much-touted candidacy to replace embattled Gray Davis seems at first nothing so much as unbelievable, even after Reagan. It is ludicrous and contemptible that, recalling a governor for his supposed failings at complex budgetary management, the people of California would put an actor (if you can call him that) with absolutely no fiscal experience into the role, for no reason other than his hyped-up celebrity. But actors have long been in bed with politicians — in Schwarzenegger’s case, literally. And in a media-driven political landscape where voters have an MTV depth-of-attention and passively pliable hero worship, it makes a strange kind of sense. An actor’s skills — playing a role, making the unbelievable believable, banking on charisma that has nothing to do with real human worth — are increasingly indistinct from those of a political leader. The lines are divorced from reality and their only goal is to spin a yarn convincingly out of whole cloth. Political campaigns have long since stopped being run as anything other than media events. Fitting that his candidacy was announced on late-night TV. But then I knew what a turn for the worst we had taken when Clinton showed up as a saxophone-toting guest on one or the other of them.
It is no wonder Reagan is revered, in the circles of his constituents, as a great, heroic and successful President; he was the perfect blank screen on which to project their hopes and agendas and, as is Dubya by reason of his dim-wittedness, a perfect front man for the scriptwriters behind the scenes, especially by the beginning of his second term when he already suffered the early manifestations of Alzheimer’s dementia. It remains to be seen if Schwarzenegger is as much of an infinitely malleable cipher. Fortunately, governator or not, he cannot become President on Constitutional grounds because he is not native-born… or will a rising cachophonous chorus of American celebrity-worship demand that that be changed as well?
As Gray Davis sits stunned by how likely it is now looking that he will lose the governor’s mansion, public discussion suggests that the recall process may set a wonderful populist precedent. Politicians may start to fear, the argument goes, that if they do not do their job well, they may lose their position. The ideal of serving at the people’s pleasure will have some teeth to it. I fear the opposite consequence; that the last vestiges of potentially responsible governanace are dropping to the need to pander to least-common-denominator popularity polls. The only saving grace may be, I hope against hope, that the ludicrousness of giving the governor’s mansion to the Terminator may become so emblematic of the decline of American politics that it catalyzes a backlash.
I’m noticing the inflammatory Right starting to relish rubbing our noses in the Schwarzenegger candidacy. James Taranto’s obsequious Opinion Journal piece from the WSJ has him offending European sensibilities because he is a flamboyant macho American and, to boot, an American by choice. And Lileks bleats (he takes pleasure in calling it that himself; nothing like disarming the critics who would shut you up by shoving your own foot as deep as you can down your own throat) about how it will revitalize politics by enlightening the celebrity worshippers to some new possibilities. Lileks is not opposed to admitting that the appearance of likeability and trustworthiness in an otherwise unqualified candidate are the only things Arnold has going for him, but then I suppose that should be no surprise from people who worship George W. Bush.
Addendum: Although so far emanating from people who know enough to be embarrassed, and therefore couched as tongue-in-cheek, the cries to amend the Constitution to allow a Predator presidency have begun:
It drove the Angry Left nuts when Dubya baited the US military’s honey-trap by telling would-be terrorists in Iraq to “bring ’em on” — Dubya’s Texas drawl simply ruled when delivering that line. But The Terminator can deliver not only an ominous accent but a physical presence that bodes major mayhem. Certainly Dubya, Arnold, and Clint Eastwood-as-Dirty-Harry collectively comprise the “Axis of Righteous Über-Taunters,” or at least the “Masters of Super-Menacing Sound-Bites.” I very much want our President to be someone who can, when appropriate, take a blunt, pithy, and aggressive phrase, and then deliver it into the CNN microphones in just the utterly convincing way that will turn it into the shrieking, bed-wetting #1 cause of recurring nightmares for even non-English speakers like Osama bin Ladin.
This is consistent with my longstanding claim that Bush’s inarticulateness has been a major part of his appeal to the idiot fringe of the Right.
