Gubernatorial goldrush: why the terminator is no gipper.

• Author: Rowe, Jonathan
• Position: On Political Books - Book Review

Next to being sued by Bill O'Reilly, one of the best things that could happen to the author of a political biography is for the story to play out again just as the book is going on sale. That's what happened to Lou Cannon regarding this new biography of a Hollywood actor who becomes Republican governor of California.

Cannon's good fortune is ours as well. Without the Davis recall, Governor Reagan would have been mainly of historical interest. Now, considering that Schwarzenegger has named Reagan as his model, it becomes a divining rod for what lies ahead.

The book also is a pleasure. Cannon has covered Reagan since his first campaign for governor in 1966, and the result is biography that often approaches memoir. Cannon is present but not intrusive, a trickier task than one might think (vide Edmund Morris's Datch). He clearly likes Reagan; and it speaks to Cannon's fairness of mind that, seeing through his eyes, we come to like Reagan, too.

Yet Cannon is clear-eyed on Reagan's failings--his disengagement both mental and emotional, for example, and his tendency to be led by staff. Cannon does not hide his differences on policy either. These observations cut deep because he does not make them with relish--a lesson the writers of CBS' aborted and (according to reports) sophomoric biopic of Reagan apparently never learned. But probably the most interesting thing about Governor Reagan at this moment is the light it sheds on the character who looms offstage--Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The symmetry is indeed uncanny. Republican actor issues forth from the moneyed precincts of Southern California, promising to unshackle enterprise from the stifling grip of government, and sporting a perennial tan. Candidate is dismissed as a mere (and mediocre) actor who lacks experience for the job, yet defeats an unpopular Democrat beset by fiscal woes. Nationally, Democrats pick up vague seismic forebodings which they hope will go away.

But does Arnold's election really continue the nation's move to the right that Reagan helped to start? Not likely. Reagan congealed the Republican Party's rightward flank at a time when its Washington establishment tended toward the center. Now Schwarzenegger could do the opposite, and provide a counterweight to the party's new hardright tilt.

The strange part is, he could do this even as he follows the example of Governor Reagan that Lou Cannon has portrayed.

For all the similarities of story line, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are very different. When Reagan was first elected, someone asked him how he would govern. "I don't know," Reagan replied, "I've never played a governor before." He was joking...