The governor, while exhausted, seems to be taking the transition in stride and with good grace, at least outwardly. NEWSWEEK’s Karen Breslau spoke with him about Schwarzenegger, show biz, life after politics –and how he found perspective during his final days in office. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: You lost your job to Arnold Schwarzenegger. There’s now talk that Dennis Miller and Al Franken will run for the Senate. Of course, we had Jesse Ventura. We’ve got “West Wing” and “K Street” on TV. Has politics just become another form of entertainment?
GRAY DAVIS: There’s no question they’ve merged. We live in a celebrity-driven world. So it’s not surprising that more people from the entertainment world would consider politics. When Ronald Reagan was elected, the next [entertainer] who got elected was George Murphy. It wouldn’t shock me if Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election encourages other entertainers to run. In fact, I’d be surprised if it didn’t. But don’t forget, Dennis Miller or Al Franken are celebrities of a much different level; Arnold Schwarzenegger is an action hero. He was able to convince people that the person they saw on the screen would be the person who would become their governor.
He was dropping the wrecking ball on the “Davis car tax " and waving a broom from the steps of the Capitol.
That was all good theater. He ran a masterful campaign.
I wonder if the recall wasn’t the most vivid example of entertainment rolling over what used to be the heady, serious business of politics You really have a he-man, swinging from a chain and knocking away the man who spent decades in the business of governing.
I don’t know. [Laughing] Arnold told me he’s getting me ready for Terminator 4. I said Arnold, “We’re switching chairs.” And he said [imitating Schwarzenegger] “I’ll do it.” I’ll tell you a funny story. The Wednesday that Arnold was supposed to be on the Jay Leno show, I’m in the car driving to the airport and my office transfers a call from Arnold Schwarzenegger and I’m thinking he’s calling to tell me whether he’s running or not running. So the first thing I say is “Are we sure it’s really Arnold Schwarzenegger?” and they say “Yes, we checked it out,” so I take the call and we have this very nice conversation for about ten minutes and I keep waiting for him to say whether or not he’s running, but it’s not going anywhere. And he asks [imitating Schwarzenegger], “Have you seen any of my movies?” and I say “Yes, ‘Kindergarten Cop’.” And we are talking and laughing. And finally I said, “Well what is it I can do for you?” And he said, “You know, it’s true what they say, you are actually a nice fellow.” [Doing Schwarzenegger impression] I didn’t know until the very end it was a hoax. It was some guy on a radio show. I knew I had to get off the phone, so I said, “Well, I’ve got to catch a plane.”
You do a pretty good Arnold.
My wife does it better. She comes up to me and says “AH’ll bee bock.”
What’s different between governing in real life and politics as entertainment?
Day-to-day governing requires a collaborative approach. So a governor needs to persuade and motivate independently elected people to buy into his agenda. When you think about the Terminator movies, you don’t think about a collaborative approach. The act of governing is still a serious matter. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done by an actor, it will be done by an actor. But he can’t say “I’ll terminate you” to a legislator who won’t vote your way. You have to be a little more artful. Having said that, I have spent enough time with him to know that he has good instincts, he seems to be appointing good people and if he gets a break from the economy, he could do well. I wish him well. This job basically depends on events you can’t control. If the economy is going well, you’ll be perceived as a good governor. If it’s not, you won’t be. It’s as simple as that. If you look across the country, governors are paying the price for a national recession. And George Bush will pay the price unless the economy recovers.
What’s it like as someone who’s invested decades of his life to know that a large percentage of the population gets political news from Leno and Letterman and Dennis Miller? Did you ever think, “Gee, I should shift my approach?”
No, and that’s another thing–the ground has shifted in many ways. I grew up in the era of Cronkite and Brinkley and Huntley and all those guys and now we’re in the MTV generation. I also grew up as someone who was taught to keep a stiff upper lip and not show your emotions in the 1950s and now we’re in the world of Oprah Winfrey, so I had to deal with that transition.
I understand you got some advice yourself from Warren Beatty?
He’s a good friend to us. As a director, he understands the economy of language. A while back we were going to give a speech on the energy crisis. He looked at about three pages of a draft and put it aside and said, “This is too much. You need six words: Wilson. Energy deregulation. Bush. Cheney. Enron.”
And that’s what people want to hear?
I was very grateful for counsel, much of which I took –but not completely. [Laughing] I spend my life worrying about what should be said, not how it should be said. You get right to the point. It’s clear, concise. Everyone’s in a hurry. No one has time for a long answer.
After Jerry Brown left office, he went to a Zen monastery in Japan for a while and grew a beard. What’s next for you?
I don’t know. I will use a Jerry Brownism: It will emerge. I do know that I want to continue to champion education reform, probably through an education foundation. We have made great progress in our schools during my time as governor. We used to be 48th in the nation in terms of performance. Now we are 32nd. We can continue to make progress and we must. If you don’t keep the pressure on, I believe California will slip back. And if we slip back, there’s no way California can continue to be an economic leader.
I wonder if the devastating fires that hit California during your final weeks in office gave you some perspective about losing.
It certainly taught me that there are more important things than winning an election. It also gave me a purpose during my final days to help people in need. This was not about Republicans and Democrats. I was just never more proud to be a Californian. I expected to see people in tears, anguish and bitter. I saw just the opposite. People were remarkably resilient in the face of tremendous loss. It’s a metaphor for the state. I remember a little girl taking me by the hand and she showed me, smiling, where her bedroom used to be. People have moved on to rebuilding their homes and their lives. It reaffirmed my belief in the human spirit. When I saw them, they were in effect, consoling me.
