Castaway

What puts Schwarzenegger's re-election in real jeopardy, though, is precisely that he is morphing into just another politician who values staying in office above whatever philosophical reasons he originally had for seeking it. After all, what made his candidacy so attractive in the first place was that he was a man already rich and famous who didn't need politics as a career or a permanent source of ego-stroking, who wanted to go to Sacramento to do away with "business as usual" and do battle with the status quo practitioners of that corrupt, incompetent mentality (i.e. the Democrats). In other words, he was that rare pol who truly was an "outsider" and could truly be a populist because he had nothing to lose by fighting all-out and to the end for the true "interests of the people."

But not anymore. Having been dealt a serious setback by the Democrat establishment, rather than continue the fight and let the voters decide whether they truly want change or the equivalent of a Gray Davis restoration, Ah-nuld is assimilating into that establishment instead. He's becoming the gelded poodle of Gollyfornia Donks. He's becoming one of the very "girly-men" he once rightfully and hilariously lampooned.

As John Connor's designated protector in Terminator II, Schwarzenegger's terminator character was programmed to carry out his mission at all costs until he either succeeded or was destroyed. In the role of the Governator, it's like he threw Connor into the T-1000's waiting arms and then threw himself at its feet and begged sobbingly for mercy and forgiveness.

To borrow a line from an unforgettable villain of another movie franchise, "So, he is a coward after all...."

-Me, two weeks ago

Guess what? The Gollyfornia GOP isn't standing for it. So much so that they might just boot Ah-nuld out of the party altogether:

Republicans in California are threatening to withhold the party’s endorsement of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unless he fires his new chief of staff, Susan P. Kennedy.

GOP activists disenchanted with Schwarzenegger are planning to rally conservatives behind a resolution – to be offered at the state Republican Party convention in February – that may give the governor an ultimatum: Get rid of Kennedy, a leading liberal activist and former aide to Democratic Governor Gray Davis, or the GOP will withdraw its support in his re-election race.

"We're to the point where we’ve just had it with the guy,” attorney Michael Schroeder, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, told the Los Angeles Times.

"It’s become clear that he’s no longer pursuing a Republican agenda.”

Ladies and gents, if the moribund, scarcely-any-less-gelded Golden State Republicans have "had it with the guy" and are willing to heave him overboard, that ought to be a clear "message" to the Governator from the opposite direction on a par with November's ballot initiative results that he should have no difficulty "receiving."

Double-H synopsizes Ah-nuld's imperative well:

Arnold has very little time to recognize the huge error that he made was not in trying for reform and losing, but in quitting. He's got to get off the canvas, get rid of Susan Kennedy, and shake off the fog he's in. [emphasis added]

If he doesn't, he'll be a man without a party - and, quite possibly, a job beyond November that doesn't involve a scrawny guy sitting in a chair yelling "action!"