Arnold Schwarzenegger - Total Recall - My Unbelievably True Life Story

I’d met Buffett, the legendary investor, at a private conference, and we’d hit it off. To my delight, even though he was a Democrat, he’d offered to back me if I decided to run. But, of course, as soon as you actually jump in, people can back away. So I asked Paul, who knew Warren well, to check whether he was still willing to commit. Warren agreed immediately.

With the election barely two months away, the campaign staff was urging me to get out and make public appearances. But while I had passion, vision, and money, I knew that I needed a deeper understanding of the complicated issues the state faced before I could venture out very much as a candidate. Shultz sent a Hoover Institution colleague to give me an intensive five-hour tutorial on California’s debt and deficits. The tutorial was a combination of charts, talk, and readings, and it was so useful and enjoyable that I immediately asked to arrange similar lessons on other big issues. “I want to meet with the best briefers in the world,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what party.” For the next few weeks, I was basically in sponge mode. The staff called it Schwarzenegger University, and the house was like a train station, with experts coming and going constantly. They included Ed Leamer, a liberal economist and head of the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Pete Wilson. Republican politicians who had almost jumped into the race themselves graciously took time to help educate me, including Dick Riordan, Darrell Issa, and Dave Dreier. I was learning about everything from energy, to workers compensation, to college tuition fees. The staff kept trying to cut these sessions short so I could get out and campaign, but I resisted the pressure. I needed the knowledge not just for the campaign but also for running the state—because in part of my mind, I’d already won.

It turns out that the governor of California has more authority to name appointees than any elected official in America except the president of the United States and the mayor of Chicago. The governor can also suspend any state law or regulation by declaring an emergency, and he can also call a special election if he wants to put a proposal directly to the voters—levers of power that might be important.

As Schwarzenegger University wound down, my staff assembled a white binder with the most important content of the briefings. I carried that binder everywhere on the campaign trail. In it were the actions I wanted to take as governor. And at the back, I kept a running list of every promise that I made.

Buffett and Shultz weren’t the types to just to sit back when they endorsed somebody. With our joint press conference approaching, they jumped at the idea of calling a bipartisan summit of business and economic leaders to explore ways to get the economy back on track. We named this the California Economic Recovery Council.

They agreed to cochair this meeting, which would be a two-hour closed-door session preceding the press conference, and they came up with a list of almost two dozen names. Paul and I invited these people to the summit ourselves, phoning them one by one from my kitchen. They included heavy hitters such as Michael Boskin, former economic advisor to the first President Bush; Arthur Rock, a cofounder of Intel Corp. and a pioneering Silicon Valley venture capitalist; Bill Jones, a former California secretary of state; and UCLA’s Ed Leamer. Of course, these were not names that would be familiar to the typical Terminator 3 or Twins fan, but their involvement would signal to the political media and policy establishment that my candidacy was for real.

The meeting, on August 20, generated useful ideas, and the press conference that followed was a smash. We’d taken over the ballroom of the Westin Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, and it was packed with reporters and video crews from all over the world and was buzzing with excitement. I’d just done a Terminator 3 press conference in Cannes in May, and this one was much bigger.

“Perfect!” I thought. Buffett the Democrat and Shultz the Republican flanked me, dramatizing the fact that I was a candidate for all of California. After they made a few opening remarks, I took questions for forty-five minutes and outlined what I’d do if the voters chose me to replace Gray Davis. Restoring California’s economic health was priority one, I emphasized, and taking fast action toward balancing the budget would be key to that plan: “Does that mean we are going to make cuts in state spending? Yes. Does this mean education is on the table? No. Does this mean I am willing to raise taxes? No. Additional taxes are the last burden we need to put on the backs of the citizens and businesses of California.”

I’d been nervous about this event, because this was the serious media, not the entertainment media. So I was wondering, “Should I change the tone? Should I sound more governor-ly?” But Mike Murphy, who had just signed on as my campaign manager, said, “Show that you’re having a good time. That you love what you’re doing. Be likeable, be yourself, be humorous, have fun. Don’t worry about saying something wrong, just be ready to make a joke about it right away. People don’t remember what you say, only whether they like you or not.” So it was all right to be me. I went out and had a great time. One of the first questions was about Warren Buffett and Proposition 13. A week before, he’d told the Wall Street Journal that a good way for California to generate more revenue would be to rethink that law, which kept property taxes unrealistically low. “It makes no sense,” he said. So now a reporter asked, “Warren Buffett says that you should change Prop 13 and raise property taxes. What do you say about that?”

“First of all, I told Warren if he mentions Prop 13 one more time, he has to do five hundred sit-ups.” That got a big laugh, and Warren, who is a good sport, smiled. Then I said unequivocally that I would not raise property taxes.

There were questions about everything from immigration to how I would get along with the Democrats who controlled the legislature. “I’m trained to deal with Democrats,” I said, pointing out that I was married to one.

Inevitably, a reporter asked when I would provide specifics about my economic and budget plans. I said, “The public doesn’t care about facts and figures. They’ve heard figures for the past five years. What the people want to know is if you are tough enough to clean house. The thing the citizens of California can count on is, I will take action.” It didn’t make sense, I added, to come up with exact positions on complex questions before I was in a position to know the facts.

A reporter asked if I would have to come up with specifics before October 7, Election Day. Silently thanking Teddy, I said simply, “No.”

My advisors were thrilled, and the coverage of my remarks in the following hours and days was overwhelmingly positive. I had to laugh, though, when I saw the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle the next morning:

Tough Talk by Actor to Tame Deficit;

But Schwarzenegger Provides Few Details

Maria, who was just back from a vacation in Hyannis with the kids, told me I’d handled myself well. She was also pleased to find much more order and coherence in the campaign—thanks in large part to the changes she’d set in motion during those first few days. And there was something else as well. I think that for the first time she smelled victory; that it was actually possible for me to win.

From that day on, the campaign picked up steam. We chose a theme a week: the economy, education, jobs, the environment. We also held a press conference at the Sacramento train station, where the legendary Governor Hiram Johnson had given a historic speech denouncing the rail barons and advocating the ballot initiative process as a way for voters to take back the state. I chose the location to emphasize that I would tackle systemic political problems like gerrymandering, which let elected officials decide the shape of their own districts so that they could keep their lock on them forever.