As Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares to take office,
it is clear that his campaign was successful even though he
generally avoided public debates and faced a late-breaking
scandal.
Political analysts and students say the movie star was chosen
because people wanted a change.
“I think he got elected because he was an outsider,”
said Leo Cho, a fourth-year political science student.
“It’s cliched by now, but people were sick of business
as usual.”
Henry Brady, a political science professor at UC Berkeley, said
Schwarzenegger won because people were “sick as hell of (Gov.
Gray Davis),” and because Schwarzenegger labeled himself as a
moderate, thereby winning some voters who traditionally vote
Democratic.
Bob Mulholland, campaign advisor to the California Democratic
Party, agreed, saying Schwarzenegger won because people were angry
about the economy.
Allan Hoffenblum, the head of Hoffenblum and Associates, a
political consulting firm, said that with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante
placing himself to the left with his “tough love” tax
policy and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, and
state Sen. Tom McClintock on the far right, the entire center was
left to Schwarzenegger.
Students seemed uniformly nonplussed by allegations against
Schwarzenegger of sexual harassment that were reported four days
before the election by the Los Angeles Times.
“Whether the allegations were true or not, it seemed like
a low blow,” said Michael Shemtoub, a fourth-year history
student.
Like many other students, Shemtoub found it suspicious that the
allegations of sexual harassment came out so late in the
election.
Hoffenblum also said that allegations of Schwarzenegger praising
Adolf Hitler in the past stretched credibility. Earlier this year,
National Public Radio reported that although Schwarzenegger’s
father had been a Nazi sympathizer, Schwarzenegger had donated
significant amounts of money to Jewish organizations.
Hoffenblum said Schwarzenegger’s past was “old
news” to Republicans who had time to digest the allegations
before the election.
“Republicans came to the conclusion that the (womanizing)
Schwarzenegger was the old Schwarzenegger, and the new
Schwarzenegger who is married to Maria Shriver would not do
that,” he said.
Many college students also dismissed the charges as mudslinging
and skeletons from the past, saying they were not relevant to his
policy.
Most students who had supported Schwarzenegger before the
charges were not deterred when they surfaced.
Some UCLA students responded to Schwarzenegger’s allure as
an action hero, but those college-aged voters who voted for him
were swayed by factors other than his Hollywood background.
Some, like Wendy Liu, a third-year political science student, do
admire Schwarzenegger as the action hero with whom they grew
up.
But for Liu and many like her, Schwarzenegger’s celebrity
mystique was not a prime motivator. Liu said hearing Schwarzenegger
speak about becoming successful after immigrating showed he is a
resourceful person, even if he did not have political
experience.
Others like Shemtoub thought Schwarzenegger was making the right
promises in a time of fiscal crisis.
“How could anyone not vote for him?” he asked.