July 05, 2003

The Union-Tribune does a feature story on the Davis recall. Worth quoting:

the dump-Davis movement has become a populist prairie fire unseen since the Proposition 13 tax revolt of 1978.

And this:

"We don't know whether [Arnold Schwarzenegger] is going to run or not, but I'm pretty sure that he is," said [Schwarzenegger] political adviser George Gorton. "He seems to be pretty interested in it and pretty excited about it."

There is much speculation that Schwarzenegger's career path may be determined by the box office receipts from "Terminator 3."

"Ask me again after the July 4 weekend grosses come in," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California. "If 'Terminator 3' rakes in $100 million, do you think he can or will be allowed to walk away from that? I don't think so. If, on the other hand, it tubes, he may decide it's time to gracefully find another career."

At 55, Schwarzenegger presumably has more movies left in him. But there's no conventional calculation of how many productive years lie ahead for an action hero.

"I don't see how he can make 'Terminator 22: The Revenge of the Nursing Home,' " Jeffe said.

Gorton said Schwarzenegger's star power and can-do image will be enough to carry him through an abbreviated recall campaign.

"Arnold is the message," Gorton said. "He comes across so well with such charisma that people are moved to like him."

That won't cut it, said Ken Khachigian, Issa's campaign manager.

Schwarzenegger is described as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, but voters are going to want to know more, Khachigian said.

"If he's in the Central Valley, he's going to be asked about agriculture," Khachigian said. "If he's in Imperial, he'll get asked about water. If he's in Orange County, he'll be asked about the El Toro air base. He may have full and complete positions on all those things, but it's no longer just yukking it up on 'Late Night with Jay Leno.' "

Posted by Greg Ransom