Hostile vista for Schwarzenegger, baby

On movie screens around the world, Arnold Schwar-zenegger's characters have been beaten, shot, blown up, squashed -- even impregnated.
Analysts say none of that has prepared the 55-year-old movie star for the pummeling he will take in the media if he runs for governor on the Oct. 7 recall ballot.

Opponents and the media already have revisited his past admissions of drug use as well as allegations of his infidelity and boorish behavior toward women.

His GOP foes are likely to focus on his lack of experience, what he calls his "very liberal" views on social issues and his criticism of his own Republican Party.

And the muscular actor may repel conservatives with his vulgar language and violent movies in which he sometimes has appeared nude.

In the final analysis, though, his supporters and some consultants contend little of this will matter in a 76-day election triggered by voters' ire -- especially if several candidates split the vote.

Analysts say the recall election may be Schwarzenegger's best shot at the state's top elective job because a short campaign favors a well-known candidate with ready cash.

"He is the embodiment of the opposite of politics as usual," said Don Sipple, a Republican media consultant poised to work for Schwarzenegger. "He is, to some extent, bigger than life. And it is hard to diminish him in a (short) campaign when people have developed their image of him over many, many years."

Schwarzenegger, who lives in Pacific Palisades, has carefully cultivated his larger-than-life image, from fitness buff to cigar aficionado to his leather-jacketed "Terminator" character, who has uttered some of the movies' most memorable lines.

Immigrating to the United States from Austria in 1968, he learned English while climbing to the top of the bodybuilding world with a record seven Mr. Olympia titles.

He became a successful businessman, a leader in charitable endeavors and a megastar who commanded a whopping $30 million for his latest movie, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines."

Schwarzenegger, who declined to be interviewed, has professed interest in a new career in politics. But his wife, NBC news reporter and Kennedy relative Maria Shriver, has been reluctant to expose her family to a political campaign.

"She has to give the green light," he told TV Guide.

At this point, Schwarzenegger is said to be undecided, and some Republicans fretted last week that he'd gotten cold feet.

If he wishes to lead the state, political analyst Bruce Cain said, the recall election is his "best chance."

"All his liabilities won't matter if he needs just 21 percent of the vote," the University of California, Berkeley political science professor said. "There are going to be enough Californians who don't care about the dope and the women. ... The hedonist vote is probably at least 25 percent of the vote in California."

GOP consultant Dan Schnur said voters are more likely to pick a political neophyte because the recall election is "an expression of anger against politics as usual."

Reciting Gov. Gray Davis' 2002 campaign slogan, he added: "They have already seen what experience that money can't buy can do."

But Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a University of Southern California political analyst, predicted GOP voters, who consider themselves members of the party they believe embraces family values, won't like Schwarzenegger's past indiscretions.

Democratic consultants predicted more indiscretions would come to light with the frenzy of press attention -- especially in the tabloid media -- his campaign would generate.

The actor has admitted smoking marijuana and using steroids during his bodybuilding career.

Schwarzenegger, the son of a Nazi Party member, has said he was prejudiced before overcoming those feelings by working with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

The center's dean, Rabbi Marvin Hier, said an investigation of Schwarzenegger's late father -- conducted at the actor's request -- found no evidence of war crimes.

Schwarzenegger, through his publicist, has denied allegations published in Premiere magazine in March 2001 that he sexually harassed women and committed infidelity.

But the British press still had a heyday with sensational headlines, like "Kindergarten Cop-a-Feel," after two female journalists claimed he had groped them during a 2000 publicity tour for his movie "The Sixth Day."

The issue arose again last year when Schwarzenegger first considered a gubernatorial bid.

Garry South, Davis' political strategist, faxed the Premiere magazine article to political reporters. Schwarzenegger never became a candidate, citing his obligation to star in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.".

He then launched a campaign for Proposition 49, a $550 million state initiative for after-school programs approved with 59 percent of the vote.

The initiative has received no state money because of California's $38 billion budget deficit, nor is any money likely to be available for several years, state finance officials said.

Schwarzenegger's supporters consider the Proposition 49 campaign a dress rehearsal for a gubernatorial campaign and say his success with the initiative shows he can withstand the scrutiny and rigors of a statewide race.

Others said an initiative campaign -- especially one that generated little controversy -- is much easier to wage than a gubernatorial bid.

A gubernatorial campaign focuses on a multitude of issues, and the candidate's character, background and beliefs are paramount.

In a recall campaign, Republican foes would likely target Schwarzenegger's criticism of the GOP as well as his support for legalized abortion, "sensible" gun control and adoption by gay parents.

They're already criticizing his statement that he was "ashamed" of his party's attack on former President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"That's like (the Dixie Chicks') Natalie Maines saying she was ashamed to be from the same state as the president," said Ken Khachigian, strategist for GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Darrell Issa. "Republicans are asking what are the differences between Gray Davis and him."

Sean Walsh, a press secretary poised to be Schwarzenegger's political spokesman, said the state's last GOP governor, Pete Wilson, held the same views on abortion and gun control.

He predicted conservatives would vote for Schwarzenegger, as they did for Wilson, because they want to retire Davis.

Schwarzenegger has said he's a fiscal conservative, but he has offered few specifics.

"His biggest vulnerability is he will have to start answering very detailed questions on a lot of complex issues," Khachigian said. "He would be leaving the black-and-white world of show business to enter a world of extreme nuance."

George Gorton, Schwarzenegger's campaign consultant, said he has a team of former Wilson advisers ready to run Schwarzenegger's campaign. He insisted his client would have "a prescription" for the state's troubles if he entered the race.

GOP consultant Alan Hoffenblum said Schwarzenegger would enter the political arena with unprecedented media attention on the first day and would have little time to recover from any big stumbles.

"I don't think he'll bomb," he said. "He's a pretty smart guy."

While Schwarzenegger's supporters contend that he's accustomed to media attention, others pointed out that the entertainment press is much easier on stars than the political press is on candidates.

Entertainment reporters, for instance, had to agree not to ask questions about a scathing biography of Schwarzenegger to get an interview with him after the 1990 publication of an unauthorized biography. Political reporters wouldn't be likely to agree to such a request.

Schwarzenegger's supporters point to former President Reagan as evidence that a charismatic actor can leap from the silver screen to the state Capitol.

But Reagan toiled in Republican trenches for almost 15 years before he won the 1966 California gubernatorial campaign.

Schwarzenegger campaigned for the first President Bush and chaired the former president's physical fitness council.

But he has only voted in three of the last eight statewide elections, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's Office.

He voted in last year's primary and general elections as well as the November 1998 gubernatorial election. County voting records only date back to 1996.

Reagan not only voted but he never appeared nude, as Schwarzenegger has in his three "Terminator" movies and in photographs.

The former president did appear in Westerns, but the depiction of violence wasn't as graphic as it is today.

Reagan occasionally stumbled in his public statements. But he was never quoted with the type of impolitic remarks that Schwarzenegger has uttered.

In recent interviews, for instance, the action star used vulgar terms when referring to a woman's physical attributes and gleefully speculated about burying a woman's face in a toilet bowl during a movie fight scene.

"That kind of language is at the lowest level," said Bob Mulholland, California Democratic Party campaign adviser.

He's already suggesting Schwarzenegger would require female state workers to wear dresses because the actor once said he won't let his mother and wife wear pants when they're in public with him.

"Arnold is a movie star, and movie stars do colorful things," his consultant, Gorton, said. "But look, the experience we already have tells us that the button-down guys got us to where we are today."