Doesn\u2019t Arnold look good? \u00a0No matter what the camera angle or lightning, day or night, inside or outside, that rascal is chiseled and tanned and verily glowing with handsomeness and charm.\u00a0 You know it.\u00a0 He\u2019s got a hell of a smile, too, at once split-front toothy and warm and empathetic.\u00a0 It\u2019s a smile full of optimism.\u00a0 No, optimism isn\u2019t a positive enough word for Arnold.\u00a0 His smile is full of confidence.\u00a0 It perhaps is even more than that.\u00a0 It is a smile of certitude.\u00a0 Arnold knows damn well he\u2019s going to win.\u00a0 Being human, he must have self-doubts sometimes.\u00a0 But he usually discusses a setback only to illustrate that he overcame it en route to astounding success and fame as a body builder, then dwarfed that career with a string of box office explosions that have made him the top one-name phenomenon in the world.\u00a0 Elvis.\u00a0 Ali.\u00a0 He\u2019s as hot as they ever were, and he\u2019s been hotter and healthier a lot longer.\u00a0 Arnold Palmer?\u00a0 We\u2019ll forever have to use his surname unless it\u2019s clear the conversation is focused on a golf course.<\/p>\n
The Arnold now has his greatest role, unless, that is, the constitutional amendment is changed \u2013 as some in congress are trying to do \u2013 and you won\u2019t have to be born here to become President of the United States.\u00a0 You\u2019ll only need to have been a citizen for twenty years.\u00a0 And you can well surmise how long Arnold\u2019s been a citizen.\u00a0 Maybe he and his proxies will win that legislative battle, and he\u2019ll succeed George W. Bush in 2008.\u00a0 The man\u2019s a big time winner, and I\u2019m not being facetious.\u00a0 I admire him.\u00a0 I\u2019m as much under his spell as most people.\u00a0 I can\u2019t help it.\u00a0 He\u2019s got that dangerously addictive attribute called charisma.\u00a0 He\u2019s always had it.\u00a0 Back in the late 1960\u2019s, this young Austrian fellow with the then unpronounceable last name was more famous than all other body builders combined.\u00a0 He still is.\u00a0 I was in high school and in those days we didn\u2019t talk as much about charisma as we do now, but most of us heard it: Arnold Schwarzenegger is charismatic.<\/p>\n
Now Arnold is the Governor of California, and he surely knows \u2013 force of personality not withstanding \u2013 that he cannot continue to be a winner unless he beats the hell out of the budget deficit.\u00a0 That foe, as you and he and I have doubtless remarked, is a lot tougher than any barbell or movie script.\u00a0 California is larger than most countries, has the world\u2019s fifth largest economy, a $99 billion dollar budget, and is as socially diverse as any continent, hosting immigrants from every place on earth, not merely the Europe of Arnold.\u00a0 California also has lots of people who aren\u2019t stars.\u00a0 California has millions of people who haven\u2019t been able to grab the American Dream.\u00a0 California has a long line of people who need help.\u00a0 And on the last point I refer not only to the unfortunate, but to the middle class.\u00a0 Most of us want to have adequate funding for education, health care, social services, highways, parks, and fill in whatever you want because in America we are taught to want it all.\u00a0 We should try for all that is reasonable.<\/p>\n
And at this point things get tough.\u00a0 They get tough for the economists and others responsible for overcoming the budget deficit.\u00a0 They get tough for Arnold.\u00a0 They\u2019ve already gotten tough for people who\u2019ve lost jobs and benefits.\u00a0 But in this story they don\u2019t get tough for me because I\u2019m not going to grind out many financial figures.\u00a0 That would be impossible and impossibly painful to even try.\u00a0 I dropped out of Economics 1A years ago after getting an F on the first test.\u00a0 I\u2019d have gotten a lot more F\u2019s if I\u2019d continued.\u00a0 I\u2019m getting F\u2019s right now trying to figure out what the hell decent people should really do.\u00a0 A lot of general statements have been spoken and written.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been keeping track of some of them in recent articles in the Los Angeles Times, the Bakersfield Californian, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Associated Press.\u00a0 Grimacing while chewing through this dense material, I outlined the key points in seven of those articles.<\/p>\n
What are those key points and a few of my own?\u00a0 They are as follows:<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t Arnold look good? \u00a0No matter what the camera angle or lightning, day or night, inside or outside, that rascal is chiseled and tanned and verily glowing with handsomeness and charm.\u00a0 You know it.\u00a0 He\u2019s got a hell of a smile, too, at once split-front toothy and warm and empathetic.\u00a0 It\u2019s a smile full of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,863,50,121,122,7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n