We can be pretty sure that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be re-elected governor next week, though it may take until January to be sure which Arnold will emerge: the in-your-face governor of 2005 or the remade collaborative-environmentalist of 2006. Given the success of the campaign, it will probably be the latter.
What's less certain is what Schwarzenegger will bring with him. Will he be able to drag Propositions 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E, the infrastructure bonds for roads, housing, water projects and schools on which he centered his program, over the threshold with him? The weakness of Democrat Phil Angelides may ironically depress Democratic turnout enough to jeopardize the bonds, which have little support from Republicans.
And since Schwarzenegger steered clear of any strong support for down-ballot candidates, he could well wake up next week with a sizable electoral margin, but no mandate for anything except a little green and getting along.
If Proposition 90 passes, it would paralyze the ability of state and local agencies to enact a wide range of future environmental regulations and zoning controls. It would all but sink even the environmental agenda that was touted – and widely celebrated – as Schwarzenegger's proudest achievement.
Proposition 90 is opposed by a lot of Schwarzenegger's best friends, including the Chamber of Commerce, who understand that it would decimate decent land-use planning. You would thus have expected the governor to campaign vigorously against it. But until Tuesday, when he finally came out in opposition, all he had said was that he was thinking about it: the Terminator playing Hamlet.
Since congressional Republicans may take it in the chops on Tuesday, and since President Bush's approval ratings are in the tank, this most unlikely of politicians might have been looked at – temporarily, at least – either as model, or even as protagonist, in dragging his fractured national party back toward some pragmatic center.
After Tuesday, Schwarzenegger will be one of the few Republican governors of a major state. Republican Rick Perry, running against three opponents, is likely to be re-elected in Texas, but with less than 40 percent of the vote. In New York, Democrat Eliot Spitzer is running ahead as are the incumbent Democratic governors in Illinois and Pennsylvania. The Foley scandal has shrunk Republican Charlie Crist's lead in Florida to the point where that race is a tossup.
All of which is to say that Schwarzenegger, running in a Democratic state, may turn out to be the biggest Republican winner in 2006. If the congressional election goes as projected, with a possible turnover of 15 to 30 seats in the House, many of them now held by moderates, it would leave moderate Rudy Giuliani and the pragmatic John McCain as the GOP's major non-frothers.
And there'd be Schwarzenegger, who has both the handicap and the advantage of being constitutionally ineligible to become president. Any other possible party restorers come to mind? Denny Hastert? Bush? Dick Cheney? Mitt Romney? The long knives are already out, blaming a loss that hasn't yet happened on the neglect of the agenda of the Christian right or the betrayal of fiscal conservatism. Conversely, don't underestimate the propensity of some victorious Democrats to squander their new majorities, if they get them, pursuing some combination of revenge and constituent group payoffs.
Anyway, the door's open. Schwarzenegger achieved considerable success in getting the California GOP, desperate for a winner, to accept his social centrism, his married lesbian Democratic chief of staff, his Kennedy relatives and his other apostasies.
He's also gone out of his way to be this year's un-Bush on stem cells and environmental policy. Last week, he publicly castigated Bush for “the absence of a coherent federal policy” on global warming.
But he's shown few signs that he has the inclination to work for major institutional reforms of his party. His own victory, moreover, would owe much to a recovering economy and an underfunded, untelegenic opponent who was probably always too serious and wonky on policy to prevail in a celebrity-crazy age.
Will Schwarzenegger get serious on education or environmental issues or alternate energy? He talks blithely about a “hydrogen highway” that remains mostly fantasy and about a million solar homes that are unlikely to pay for themselves unless energy costs skyrocket. More generally, his administration's capacity for – and interest in – policy can't hold a candle to the sophistication of his political operation.
But that hardly tarnishes the image. Schwarzenegger has shown that he can turn it – and the eager media with him – on a dime. Meanwhile, there's likely to be great demand for a savior, particularly from the corporations and other deep GOP pockets looking for a party with a lighter load of crazies.
Can the national GOP be pulled back to a more moderate, pragmatic center? More immediately, will the 2007 model Schwarzenegger be able to address enough serious issues to convince both his state and his nation that there really is a third way – and that he isn't just an act?
