Arnold’s Last Yodel

15 January 2010 |permalink | email article

Gov. Schwarzenegger and California legislative leaders are preparing for a three-day trip to Washington next week to lobby federal lawmakers and the Obama administration for more federal aid. In advance Democrats are trying to get Schwarzenegger to lower his war of words with Washington.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said that while the legislature has built a good working relationship with the state’s congressional delegation and the Obama administration, “I’m not sure why the governor would come in throwing punches at the people you want to help you.”

It’s a good lede into an Opinionator commentary, “Arnold’s Last Yodel,” in the New York Times by Timothy Egan, an author and former reporter who writes on American politics and life, as seen from the West. Excerpts:

A Reagan Republican who married into the royalty of America’s Democratic dynasty, Arnold Schwarzenegger had everything going for him – no ties to party leaders, interest groups or the past.

Now the swagger, the audacity, the blush of the new – it’s all gone for the Governator of Winter. He was grim-faced and hollow-eyed last week in his final state of the state speech. Standing in front of the Bear Flag, a reminder of the days when giants ruled California, and further back, when even he Los Angeles basin had grizzly bears.

The governor had no choice but to talk like one of the “economic girly men” he used to deride. The budget, like the old ones are catastrophic … (and) he still needs another $20 billion just to keep the ship of state from sinking.

Does his fall – down to 27 percent approval – signal the end of a certain kind of politician? Or is it because modern California destroys anyone who dares try to govern it? Watching the action figure beg, and threaten to shred an already torn safety net, is pathos on a public stage.

In his swan sing state speech, he tried one more time to reach into the self-help bromides that have carried him since his early body building days. “If I had hesitated in my career every time it was too hard,” he said, “I would still be yodeling in Austria.”

What the state needs, as many are advocating, is a constitutional convention…And the governor, in his final year in office, should join the call. Yodel it, if he wants. 

 

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