As a family, we've watched every Schwarzenegger action movie more times than is probably psychologically healthy; we know his lines by heart; we love Schwarzenegger the predator, the commando, the destroyer, the barbarian, the eraser, the terminator. The actor.
The problem is Schwarzenegger, I now realize, has never acted a day in his life. As he took the podium to speak in recent weeks, we didn't hear an Austrian-American with an accent, we heard the Terminator. He doesn't shed his role because he has never played one. He was playing himself all along.
In other words, Schwarzenegger is the Terminator, and Californians elected him.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. The Terminator has much to recommend him. Among his qualities: a preternatural instinct for assessing friends and enemies; a bold, unequivocal approach to problem solving; a willingness to sacrifice personal interest, even life, for the greater good. A man of action and brawn, he's a man's man and, if only he were human, a guy to tempt a girl's heart.
The ousted Gray Davis, by comparison, summons to the free-associative mind ... pink.
Not even the scandals of Schwarzenegger's groping ways seemed to bother voters. My best answer to the question of why women weren't more offended by the groping allegations in light of Bill Clinton's experience is, timing.
By the time women sallied forth to discuss their close encounters with Schwarzenegger, most Americans were deja-vued out on the issue of politicians' past sexual peccadilloes. The charges also had the unmistakable scent of a political smear, of which we've all had enough already. Love or hate Clinton, no one wants to return to the Starr chamber.
They say all American trends start in California and trickle east. If so, we might expect to see Dems butching up their act for 2004. Wonder who will show up first on a Harley Fatboy, Howard Dean or John Kerry?