Give Gov. His Props, Then on to Next Test

Sacramento —  OK, give the governor an A-minus. He deserves it.

I’d graded him a B for his first 100 days on the job but said it would be raised to an A-minus or lowered to a C-minus a week later, depending on the outcome of his two ballot propositions.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger aced the test, his first big one as governor, completely turning around the public’s initial negative attitude in a few weeks. Both his $15-billion bailout bond and balanced-budget amendment won by landslide margins.

Credit an $8.5-million campaign and no organized opposition. It would have been more stunning if Propositions 57 and 58 had not won.

But without question, the biggest thing those props had going for them was Schwarzenegger and his charm, salesmanship and upbeat, competitive spirit. Only the Hollywood action hero could have sold people on taking out a 10-year loan to pay off cheaper short-term notes and finance current expenses.

“Our polls showed that people were saying, ‘I don’t know all the details, but if Arnold supports it, I support it,’ ” Schwarzenegger political spokesman Todd Harris said election night.

And only this governor could have attracted such a broad bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats.

“A lot of people in Sacramento see how popular he is and don’t want to be on the wrong side,” Harris observed. “It’s like that old adage about the boulder rolling down the mountain. You can stand in front of it and be crushed. Or you can get behind it and get credit for pushing.”

Harris spoke in the midst of a scene that’s unlikely to be matched in California politics for a long time. At the victory celebration in a Santa Monica oceanfront hotel -- itself blessed that evening with a fitting, rosy sunset into the bay while rain fell elsewhere -- hardened politicos who normally are adversaries traded back-pats and embraces: business and labor leaders, GOP officials and Democratic Assembly speakers, anti-tax types and liberal spenders....

Some pols showed up just to bask in the Schwarzenegger glow. But many also commented about how voters are demanding solutions from Sacramento and are sick of the squabbling that has soiled the Capitol’s image.

Republican state Chairman Duf Sundheim, a Palo Alto attorney, noted: “Arnold is showing that Republicans are capable of governing. Before, we were just preachers.”

But let’s not leap too far into legacy-writing.

All this ballot package does is buy time, with minimal pain, while the governor and Legislature try to figure out how to really balance the budget. They’re now in a $17-billion hole.

Garry South, who was former Gov. Gray Davis’ political strategist -- and was not at the victory celebration -- says: “Arnold had to oversell these ballot propositions. Now he has a little problem. It’s going to become clear relatively soon that all his promises were hogwash....

“So far, this has been showmanship.... He’s riding high, but ultimately he’ll come down to earth because reality will

intervene.... I’ve seen from

a front-row seat how these

problems can drag down a governor.”

Not every governor. Ronald Reagan prospered politically because of showmanship. Reality never dragged him down because he was popular and pragmatic and adapted.

Schwarzenegger is no dummy. “Let’s not sit on our laurels,” he told the cheering crowd. “We cannot slow down. As a matter of fact, I want to speed up. I will not rest until we have true workers’ compensation reform.”

The governor’s hawk-like focus now is on workers’ comp -- the words mentioned far more often in that political crowd than bonds or budget.

Everybody seemed to be speculating about whether Schwarzenegger’s reaffirmed ability to sway voters would propel the Legislature into acting on workers’ comp -- or whether he’d need to follow up on his threat to take the issue to the November ballot. Everyone agreed that the voters had just dealt the governor a much stronger hand to play poker with the Legislature.

Schwarzenegger will be trying to coax Democratic lawmakers while his political team attempts to coerce them. The governor had no trouble setting up a workers’ comp negotiating session with legislative leaders Wednesday.

“I guess it’s doable,” said Senate Leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) afterward. “Once you agree on something, it’s bing, bang, boom.”

If it’s not, Democrats will be hearing about it from angry business owners. The Schwarzenegger political operation has 1.8 million pieces of mail ready to send Californians urging them to contact their legislators. There’s also a TV ad in the works.

Democrats will assess whether they’d be better off settling with Schwarzenegger and making themselves look productive, while angering loyal patrons like workers’ comp attorneys. Or is workers’ comp the election battleground where they try to cut down the governor, while distracting him from their political races? Both sides must decide whether they should risk a $20-million campaign they could lose.

The course work will be getting tougher. There’ll be more testing and grades. But this governor already looks like a candidate for the honor roll.

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday.

Reach him at [email protected].