Before “the Donald,” there was “Arnold.”
Donald Trump, the New York business tycoon and reality television star, has roiled American politics this summer with his leading campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. A dozen years ago, another celebrity Republican captured the nation’s attention with a political story that was literally straight out of Hollywood, as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the biggest box office star in the world at the time, was elected California’s 38th governor in an historic recall campaign.
The similarities end there.
“Arnold had substance. He ran to win and govern. It wasn’t a publicity stunt,” said Brad Smith, a Republican operative in California who, as chief of staff to then-Congressman David Dreier, was closely involved in the 2003 recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and installation of Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger in 2003 had some advantages that Trump in 2016 does not.
The film star avoided a Republican primary, where his socially moderate positions might have threatened his nomination, and the entire California Republican establishment jumped on board his candidacy. The winner-take-all recall was an eight-week sprint and Davis didn’t even register for the ballot, believing it would legitimize calls for his ouster. Trump has to navigate a primary field of 17 and win a campaign that will have lasted more than a year by the time the GOP crowns a nominee.
But the political rise of Schwarzenegger, also a vastly wealthy household name who had never sought political office, is still striking compared to that of Trump. His campaign did not respond Monday to a request to comment for this story.
Schwarzenegger surrounded himself with some of the top political talent in the business — among them Mike Murphy, now running former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise USA, and Todd Harris, now a top advisor to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. More importantly, Schwarzenegger took direction from his team. Rich political outsiders who have never run for office before are notorious for refusing to listen to campaign professionals — often to disastrous consequences.
“He listened, took advice and wanted counsel. He was far from being the puppet of consultants,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative in Sacramento who advised Schwarzenegger on communications during the campaign and later served in his administration.
Trump’s team consists of little known operatives with minimal experience at the highest level. The businessman’s one sage adviser with years of know-how, Roger Stone, quit over the weekend (Trump insists he was fired) because, he says, the candidate refused to take advice or run his campaign professionally. On substance and issues, too, Trump has failed to meet the standard that Schwarzenegger established for a successful celebrity candidacy, and is missing an opportunity to leverage his fame and name recognition for broad support.
Much as Trump’s rise has been fueled by frustrated voters who are mad at Washington, support for the recall, channeled by Schwarzenegger’s outsider candidacy, was fueled by Californians who were fed up with Sacramento.
But Schwarzenegger brought more the table than his trove of simplistic, kitschy one-liners from all of his iconic movie roles. He drilled down on policy early in his campaign, developing an understanding of the most mundane yet important issues. This crash course, dubbed “Schwarzenegger University” by top policy aide Joe Rodota and which bolstered his optimistic vision for a wholesale reform of state government, established him as a serious candidate and helped him pass the credibility test.
Trump has shunned issues, building his undisciplined campaign around a cult of personality, angry rhetorical platitudes and not much in the way of positive vision beyond his campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again.” Nowhere has the contrast between the celebrity candidacies been more apparent than their approach to debating. Trump decided to wing it Thursday, during the first presidential debate of 2016, saying before the spectacle that he didn’t think it was possible to “artificially” prepare. Schwarzenegger only agreed to participate in one debate in 2003. But he practiced relentlessly.
The verdict on Trump’s debate performance is still out. But the bombastic, vapid, shallow nature of his campaign might explain why he fares worse against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical head-to-head general election match-ups than the other leading Republican candidates. A crucial part of Schwarzenegger’s success 12 years ago this summer was that he was able to convince voters and the political press corps that he was committed to winning — and governing.
“The Hollywood stuff was always in every speech, but then he knew how to turn it back towards policy. I think it, in a way, gave skeptical voters a pass to say, ‘Okay, let’s give this guy a shot,'” said John Myers, who covered the recall for San Francisco’s National Public Radio affiliate and is now its California politics and government editor.
“There was never a moment that he came off as a guy just doing it to enhance his image or to boost his ego,” Myers added. “I think that kind of seriousness worked; it shaped his press coverage, as reporters treated him like a real candidate and not like a sideshow.”
This highbrow image, boosted by Schwarzenegger’s decision to surround himself with mentors like George P. Shulz, a veteran of President Reagan’s administration, and noted investor Warren Buffet, gave Schwarzenegger the latitude to deploy his celebrity and exploit his fame to garner attention in generally politically disinterested California and broaden his base of support in a Democratic state that hasn’t voted Republican for governor or president since 1994, except for his 2003 recall victory and re-election in 2006.
Trump, until recent years a liberal Democrat, dipped his tow into the presidential waters four years ago with a political stunt that questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States and therefore his eligibility to serve as commander in chief. As masterful as Trump’s “birther” campaign was at harnessing media coverage and forcing Obama to release his birth record, it was a nuisance for a GOP that was struggling to expand its appeal with younger and non-white voters.
Schwarzenegger’s dry run for the governor’s mansion was Proposition 49, a voter initiative he spearheaded in 2002 while still a full-time actor that reserved state money for after-school programs for elementary and junior high school students.
In preparing Prop 49, which passed with 57 percent of the vote that year, Schwarzenegger, a lifetime Republican whose past public support for politicians had been limited to GOP candidates, held town hall meetings, engaged California’s major public policy and political groups and met with legislative leaders to learn how the state budget worked.
The iconic Hollywood action star, with the funny Austrian accent and who rose to prominence as a world champion body builder, made a lasting impression.
“He asked better questions about the budget than most people in the Legislature; better, more insightful, with better follow-up,” said Jim Brulte, chairman of the California Republican Party who in 2002 was a veteran legislator serving as the state senate minority leader.
Schwarzenegger would eventually disappoint Republicans during his second term, from 2007-2011, by abandoning many of the conservative policies he ran on in 2003 and fought for during his first few years in office. The governor’s image was further tarnished after he left office when it was revealed that he had hidden an affair with a family housekeeper with whom with he had fathered a child before taking office in Sacramento.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
