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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
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1 5 - 1 2 - 2 0 0 5 Schwarzenegger looks to rebuild power
The celebrity California governor, gearing up for 2006 reelection bid, aims to craft a more centrist image
December 15, 2005 edition REDWOOD SHORES, CALIF. – Recover. Reform. Rebuild. As a bodybuilder, that was Arnold Schwarzenegger's method to sculpt eye-popping muscles. As a governor, it was his three-part plan to fix California. Now, it might be his prescription for political survival.
After dedicating his first year in office to economic recovery, Governor Schwarzenegger (R) tried to make 2005 the year of reform. That effort ended when voters rejected all four initiatives he promoted in last month's special election. Having failed to reform the state, he promptly reformed his staff - and his rhetoric. But hiring a Democrat as his new chief of staff and pushing for an estimated $50 billion bond measure to improve state infrastructure have left some of the governor's conservative allies feeling betrayed. The backlash is a sign of tensions that could intensify as the governor ramps up for reelection next year. At one level, his struggle to appeal broadly to voters while keeping core supporters happy is a dilemma shared by virtually every politician. But Schwarzenegger's case is unique because it goes to the heart of his political identity. Is he truly a Republican, who happens to share some Democratic values? Or is he a hybrid candidate - part fiscal conservative, part social liberal, part libertarian, part populist, and all celebrity? Even as he aims to reassure his anxious political base during a meeting with state GOP leaders Thursday, some observers are asking: Would Schwarzenegger be better off running for reelection as an Independent? "Running officially as an Independent candidate would allow him to reestablish his political base at the center of the spectrum," says Dan Schnur, one of the state's top GOP strategists. "But even if he remained registered as a Republican, he's still going to run as a centrist and as an independent." For now, Republican Party leaders are standing by their man. "He's done a great job for this state, and I think at present time we stand by that," says Duf Sundheim, chairman of the California Republican Party. "We hope that he retains his decision to [run again] as a Republican." Mr. Sundheim and others are meeting with the governor Thursday to discuss the woman he picked to be his new chief of staff, Susan Kennedy. Ms. Kennedy has been an activist for liberal causes and was a top aide to former Gov. Gray Davis (D), whom Schwarzenegger ousted in the recall election of 2003. The personnel change stunned Republicans, who worry that her appointment signifies more than just a fresh face, but a new policy direction as well. "It's safe to say that conservatives are concerned, probably even worried, with an extremely hard-line liberal as his chief of staff," says Kevin Jeffries, chairman of Riverside County Republican Party. "We're concerned what kind of influence [Kennedy] will have on his policy and his future agenda." Schwarzenegger played down the partisan irony of her appointment, emphasizing her public-policy experience. "Susan is a hands-on, action-oriented person who gets things done," he said. Getting things done, analysts say, is what the governor needs to do to rebuild his political power. Passing legislation through the state's liberal - and even less popular - legislature was easier to do when Schwarzenegger enjoyed sky-high approval ratings. In August 2004, his poll numbers were at 65 percent. In the past few weeks, they've been in the mid-30s. That's why Schwarzenegger is working hard to recapture the independents and moderate Democrats who helped elect him, analysts say. Hiring members of Gray Davis's team is one small way to project a centrist, bipartisan image. But he's going further. The massive bond measure he's pushing conjures up the policies of - and nostalgia for - California Gov. Pat Brown (D), whose public projects helped shape California in the 1960s. It's all part of Schwarzenegger's effort to win back the center of the California electorate, which was alienated by this year's special election, says Matthew Baum, a professor of political science at UCLA. "If I were advising him, I'd say, if you don't revamp your agenda, you're done," he says. "The agenda you were running on was shot down in flames." But revamping the Schwarzenegger agenda to reflect Democratic priorities is exactly what California Republicans fear most. "Hell hath no fury like a conservative scorned," says California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres. Despite the failure to pass a single initiative in last month's special election, Republicans express confidence that Schwarzenegger can reconnect with voters. "There's no reason he can't regain the support of the political center, because he's the same centrist who ran for governor two years ago," says Mr. Schnur. "The problem he ran into this year was that he emphasized the most conservative aspects of his agenda. The lesson Schwarzenegger learned is that he has to present himself in ideological balance." But Tom McClintock, a Republican state senator, who ran against the governor in the 2003 recall election, warns Schwarzenegger against straying too far from conservative principles. "If he were to stray toward those policies that produced the recall in the first place, it would be unwise for both himself, our party, and our state," he says. "Arnold needs to stay with us," says Mr. Jeffries. "And we need to stay with him." 0 6 - 0 1 - 2 0 0 5 ANALYSIS: Governor rewrites script to star again as hero
San Francisco Chronicle Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled Thursday for California voters an ambitious marketing campaign for a decidedly more consumer-friendly political product -- an improved elected official and candidate who is "wiser'' and focused solely on "the needs of the people.''
The latest version of Schwarzenegger, as introduced in his 25-minute State of the State speech, marked a dramatic contrast from last year's model -- one who railed about "special interests,'' threw out bold promises about "blowing up boxes," and set off so many firestorms that he ended up consumed by a disastrous special election defeat. This time the tone was conciliatory not combative, a can-do attitude, but with a dollop of realism and self-deprecating humor thrown in. "What a difference a year makes,'' he said to chuckles, noting that his fortunes -- like that of formerly No. 1 college football darling, USC -- have changed overnight. The governor, in appealing to voters to look ahead, urged billions of dollars in bonds for ambitious infrastructure improvements for "a California eager to meet the challenges of the 21st century'' with new roads, more schools, better courts, stronger levees. Repeatedly, he urged a call to action: "I say, build it.'' The speech highlighted how Schwarzenegger -- as many political insiders predicted he must -- has turned back to the future: aiming to recapture the magic of the moderate, maverick, bipartisan reformer who enthralled voters in 2003 during and after the historic recall election. Gone was the "girlie man" talk mocking lawmakers. This time, he offered a hand to his Democratic opponents, praising their effort, inviting their help and urging them to "work with me" to invest in California. The address by California's Republican leader was a road map for Schwarzenegger's election-year journey to turn himself from the current ugly duckling whose political leadership is opposed by nearly two-thirds of state voters into a swan once again. And it illustrated how the bodybuilder-turned-movie-star-turned-governor aimed again to create his own political image. By the end of the evening, Republicans and Democrats were alternately praising his vision, cautioning constraint about his ambitious plans -- and debating his political profile. "One year ago, we were blowing up the boxes, and now we're being told build it, build it, build it,'' said Jon Fleischman, publisher of the popular conservative GOP Internet blog, the FlashReport. "It's like the election results of last year have caused a complete ideological reversal ... the governor's a great guy, but it's confusing. It sends the wrong message to Republicans,'' he complained. Fleischman added: "With massive borrowing, an increase in the minimum wage and a lack of details about how we're going to pay for all this, this speech could have been given by (former Democratic Gov.) Gray Davis.'' Davis said it isn't surprising the GOP governor is recouping from his own political defeat by trying out a new march. "This is like in the Army -- left, right, left,'' Davis shrugged. "Look, he said he learned his lesson and he made mistakes. Last year was a lost opportunity. He took on nurses, teachers and firefighters and he got his hat handed to him.'' But while saying the governor could do more to help make prescription drugs more affordable, Davis was largely effusive about the address. "This year, he's on the right track, and he's trying to chart a course for California proposing investments that will control traffic, reduce pollution and build more schools. That's good, basic stuff,'' he said. Indeed, history shows that Schwarzenegger -- savvy in the competitive worlds of entertainment and physical fitness -- fully understands the magic of the makeover and good marketing in politics, especially when it comes to up-close-and-personal appeals to constituents. But several analysts said the governor's problem is the big-picture one: Even after more than two years in office, he still lacks an overarching story line, a consistent theme for his political leadership. "Everybody's a product of where they come from, and this guy, when he wants to change what he is -- he does a new script and movie. But politics is very different from that,'' says political strategist David Doak, who is advising Democratic Controller Steve Westly in his campaign for governor. "People expect you to have base core values and make adjustments, but not to entirely remake yourself.'' "You can't zip right and zip left without people questioning what you stand for,'' said Bruce Cain, who heads UC Berkeley's Institute for Governmental Studies. While most Californians "will breathe a sigh of relief that he's not continuing on the confrontational path,'' he said, "the danger for this strategy is that he could lose both sides.'' "Arnold, or someone, has to sit through all this advice and sort out a coherent plan,'' Cain said. "One thing we haven't seen in the Schwarzenegger administration is coherence.'' But Thursday's speech also showed that -- despite his bomb at last year's political box office -- the governor is not the market variety politician that inhabits the Capitol. "The voters genuinely like him, '' said Barbara O'Connor, professor of political communication at CSU Sacramento. "They may disagree with him, but they're intrigued by him. ... He gets their attention." And when the governor is offering up programs on issues they care about the voters "may be willing to end their anger and re-evaluate,'' she said. 0 7 - 0 1 - 2 0 0 6 Schwarzenegger aims to spend his way back to popularity
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to restore his popularity with a huge 10-year spending programme that would swell California's debt by a record $68 billion (£38 billion).
The humbled Republican governor appealed to voters in his annual state-of-the-state address, outlining policies that mark a return to the political centre after last year's damaging lurch to the Right. The former Hollywood star, who will seek re-election in November, was contrite as he told voters that he "should have listened" to them and not ploughed ahead with last November's special election on four proposals in which he suffered a stinging defeat. His speech marked a dramatic shift from his former combative stance when he picked the fight with legislators that led to the costly election. "I have absorbed my defeat," Mr Schwarzenegger told the packed assembly chamber in Sacramento. "I have learned my lesson. And the people, who always have the last word, sent a clear message: cut the warfare, cool the rhetoric, find common ground and fix the problems together. To my fellow Californians, I say, 'Message received'." The Austrian-born former bodybuilder hopes that a $222.6 billion (£126.7 billion) spree on schools, roads, water supply and public safety will restore his once ardent support. For years the nation's most populous state, one of the world's biggest economies, has overspent its annual budget, which now stands at $114 billion (£64 billion). But the proposed public works programme would require the largest bond package in state history. Mr Schwarzenegger said it was necessary to keep pace with the state's expanding population, expected to reach 46 million by 2025. Addressing a legislature dominated by Democrats he once ridiculed as "girlie men", he said he hoped to return the state to the golden era of prosperity in the 1960s he observed as a young immigrant. The plan requires approval from the legislature as well as voters who will be asked to support borrowing in a series of elections between 2006 and 2014. Recovering bipartisan appeal is vital to success in a state where two thirds of voters are registered as Democrats or independents. The governor must also win over critics who say he has failed to make the substantial changes promised during his 2003 recall campaign, which led to the ousting of Gray Davis, his Democrat predecessor. 1 0 - 0 1 - 2 0 0 6 Schwarzenegger's shifting views could cost him credibility
By DAN WALTERS
"The Terminator," Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1986 sci-fi thriller about a cyborg assassin who traveled back in time to kill a young woman, was an enormous hit - so much so, that the bodybuilder-turned-actor and movie executives wanted a sequel.
That ambition, however, faced a problem. Schwarzenegger's homicidal character had been obliterated in the first film. Their solution was to repackage the same character as a good guy cyborg sent to Earth to protect the young woman's son - a plot that was basically repeated in Terminator III, released as Schwarzenegger launched his run for governor. Same character, different situational positioning _ more or less what Schwarzenegger is now trying to do with a third version of his governorship, his denials notwithstanding. "Anyone who says I am changing positions is totally wrong," Schwarzenegger said last week. But while has always had infrastructure improvements in mind as a lasting legacy, they were supposed to come after he had balanced the state budget and reformed the political system; having failed on those two initial goals, he's now proceeding to the third phase of "restore, reform, rebuild." Given Schwarzenegger's much-diminished popularity, his abject failure to win voter approval for his four "year of reform" ballot measures last year and his looming re-election campaign, it's not surprising that he is doing some repositioning from confrontational reformer to public works advocate. But as he launches "Governator III," he may find that abrupt shifts of public persona grate on voters. Schwarzenegger is beginning to resemble one of his predecessors, Jerry Brown, whose frequent shifts of image, position and even political ambition finally were his undoing. He was running for something - re-election, president or U.S. senator - every two years, changing stances on political issues with even greater frequency (most famously on Proposition 13 and taxes) and insisting that repositioning was an asset. He was fond of quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's credo that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" and once told high school students that he practiced a "canoe theory" of politics in which he paddled on the left and then on the right to maintain headway. Democrat Brown got his political comeuppance when he ran for the Senate in 1982 and was trounced by Republican Pete Wilson, saying afterwards, "I think people got tired of my voice. They got tired of me on television . . . and frankly I got a little tired of it." Brown, it should be noted, continued to dabble in politics after taking a break, running for president a couple of times before becoming mayor of Oakland, and is now the leading Democratic candidate for attorney general. Schwarzenegger's political career has been much shorter, but having gone through four elections in just over two years, with countless campaign-style media events and at least three versions of public image, he may be in danger of suffering a Brown-style rejection for the same reasons. Clearly, one reason he sustained a sharp reversal at the polls last year was that he was trying to persuade voters to fundamentally change the balance of power in the Capitol after telling them for months that he and lawmakers were making "fantastic" progress on solving the state's problems. Schwarzenegger confused the public and opened a credibility gap that undermined his public standing. Now, in repositioning himself again, Schwarzenegger could widen that gap. His political opponents seem to believe that credibility is an issue that has already wounded the governor and could be fatal this year. Last week, after he unveiled his $222 billion, 10-year "strategic growth plan" of public works improvements, Democrats outside the Legislature, reciting the same set of talking points, attacked him for lacking conviction and shifting gears merely to win re-election. On Monday, for example, the leading Democratic contender for governor, Treasurer Phil Angelides, characterized Schwarzenegger's infrastructure plan as "too much hype, too many gimmicks." If Schwarzenegger's career is to continue, he must not allow that image, already evident in polling, to grow stronger. Jerry Brown could tell him about voter fatigue. 2 6 - 0 1 - 2 0 0 6 Centrism will only earn enemies for Schwarzenegger
By DAN WALTERS
Gray Davis was the most risk-averse governor in recorded California history, carefully avoiding any position or topic that he thought might generate significant controversy - but learned that practicing finger-in-the-wind politics was the riskiest strategy when voters recalled him from office in 2003 for allowing energy and budget crises to fester. The irony of Davis' political undoing is being compounded three years later by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder-turned-actor to whom California voters turned on his promise of "action, action, action, action." As he begins his third year in the governorship, Schwarzenegger is retreating from confronting the Capitol's dysfunctional status quo and is, in a sense, channeling Davis. Schwarzenegger's annual appearance Tuesday before the Sacramento Press Club was vintage Davis - advocating only policies that he knows will find favor with the voters (infrastructure investment), sidestepping questions on controversial issues (the Iraq war, assisted suicide) and paying homage to the legislative leaders he was trying to kneecap last year. Schwarzenegger, it would appear, has convinced himself that avoiding risk and telling voters about the highways and other goodies he wants to deliver to them will overcome his less-than-stellar popularity and gain him another stint in the Capitol this year. "It is all about the quality of life," he told the Press Club as he pitched his plan to spend $222 billion on transportation, waterworks, schools and other public facilities over the next decade without raising taxes - while insisting, with a straight face, that "we won't win votes with this proposal." The governor clearly will bend almost any direction to please Democrats, but the more he caters to them, the more he alienates himself from Republicans, especially conservative Republicans, who are leery about massive spending of any kind and who are insisting that there should be reforms to streamline projects, the kinds of reforms that environmentalists and unions intensely oppose. Conservatives are already complaining that Schwarzenegger is leaning too far to the left on spending. Some want to strip him of the Republican Party's re-election endorsement at next month's state convention, citing his appointment of long-time Democratic Party activist Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff. Kennedy was a top official in the Gray Davis administration as well - one of the architects, it could be said, of his risk-averse governance. Channeling indeed. |
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