Schwarzenegger as governor: terminator or healer?

It is perhaps surprising that Joseph Canciamilla and Donald Burns are looking to California's next governor with such a sense of hope. According to the recall rhetoric, the legislator and the lobbyist are just the sort of Sacramento insiders that Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger - the ultimate outsider - vowed to terminate.

Yet beyond the witty one-liners, the two men see the spark of something in Mr. Schwarzenegger's politics and persona that, they suggest, California has lacked for a long time: leadership.

They have seen glimpses in a victory speech that reached out to Democrats and in a transition team that includes people of all political stripes. And that desire to govern through consensus, should it continue, could be more significant than any proposal or policy.

After 20 years of gubernatorial technocrats forging only deeper divisions here, Schwarzenegger as the charismatic centrist now has a unique opportunity to begin to heal a fractured Capitol - and get things done.

"We've seen so little [leadership, that] it's a dim memory in California," says Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "The biggest need in California is to create a common ground."

At this early stage, it's impossible to discern whether Schwarzenegger will build on the bipartisan themes he has established after the election or use his resounding victory to slice through Sacramento as Conan the Governor. Both could qualify as "leadership." Yet only one will work here, says Mr. Canciamilla, a Democratic member of the state Assembly.

"If he works to develop a partnership, it will go much better than if he says, 'This is what I want you to do and you do it,'" says Canciamilla. "That has been tried before and it doesn't work."

Most recently, it has been tried by Gov. Gray Davis, who once said imperiously that the Legislature's job was to implement his will. Instead, the Legislature rebelled, making him little more than a spectator in this summer's budget negotiations. Likewise, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura tried to govern despite the Legislature, and found himself pushed to the political margins despite a popular mandate similar to Schwarzenegger's.

If anything, the Byzantine checks and balances of the California political system make one-man rule even more difficult. Yet there are hints that Schwarzenegger could yet turn to leadership by fiat. He has said he would consider starting ballot initiatives if the Legislature didn't work with him to create a budget spending cap and repeal the recent bill that gave illegal immigrants' the right to get driver's licenses.

It's a potentially dangerous path. "Defining leadership as 'follow me' is very difficult in Sacramento because it's set up with a lot of veto points," says Professor Cain. "Creating consensus is the only way to survive, because you can't just [govern] through referendums."

Still, some have liked what they have seen so far. State Attorney Gen. Bill Lockyer - one of the top Democratic power brokers in the state - said this weekend that he opted for Schwarzenegger on Question 2 of the recall ballot, citing his hope that the political newcomer might deliver "principled leadership."

Canciamilla, for his part, notes the governor-elect's bipartisan appointments to his transition team. "He's certainly laying the groundwork for leadership as opposed to letting events wash over him," he says.

It's a significant vote of confidence. As a moderate who has stood out for his insistence that bipartisan compromise is necessary to fix the budget, Canciamilla would be a natural Schwarzenegger ally should he choose to govern from the center. Moreover, with ideological extremes dominating the Legislature, Schwarzenegger's success could hinge on persuading other legislators to think like Canciamilla.

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