A campaign without end Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Omaha Steve]

Full story: http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-schrag30jul30,0,7428720.story?coll=cl-bookreview

A campaign without end
The People's Machine Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy Joe Mathews PublicAffairs: 456 pp. $26.95

By Peter Schrag, Peter Schrag, a columnist and former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee, is the author, most recently, of "California: America's High Stakes Experiment."

IF you're a political junkie, Joe Mathews' book, "The People's Machine," will be catnip. If you're not a political junkie, beware: It could easily make you one.

Mathews, a Los Angeles Times reporter who has covered much of Arnold Schwarzenegger's intense three-year political career — yes, it's been only three years — believes that the governor, in his fusion of entertainment with politics and of conventional government with direct democracy, represents a new phenomenon in American public life.

Except for the labels Mathews uses — "blockbuster democracy," "the people's machine" — that's not altogether a new take. A lot of politicians — Huey P. Long Jr., Fiorello H. LaGuardia, William Jennings Bryan — put on good shows for "the people." In our history, a good deal of the nation's entertainment has come from politicians and preachers. The Romans offered the people bread and circuses.

Nor is Schwarzenegger the first California politician to use ballot measures as part of his political strategy. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's reelection in 1994 owed a great deal to his embrace of hot-button crime and immigration initiatives. Jerry Brown, now the Democratic candidate for attorney general, is still trumpeting his authorship of the California Political Reform Act, which helped carry him to victory in the governor's race in 1974.