California can certainly use a bit of reform. But it's a bit disingenuous to suggest he's just a poor guy who let his swagger get in the way of his honest, well-meaning reform ticket.

Two years ago, Arnold campaigned as a centrist, willing to work with both parties in a non-partisan way to do what needed to be done. And for awhile, he seemed to work that way. But then something happened ... Arnold got the whiff of an Amendment to allow foreign-born citizens to run for President (however unlikely that is in reality), and at that point made a conscious decision to ingratiate himself with the Republican party in the hopes of earning a nomination.

Of course, that meant compromising whatever centrist, non-partisan veneer he'd had. Now he had to on the attack, casting Democrats and liberals as the enemy with his special election propositions, cutting off any hope of compromise. He took on the labor unions, bane of the Grand Old Party, but said nothing about the corporate donors Republicans rely on. Last month he vetoed a legislative marriage bill, snubbing many moderates and liberals and gays who had voted for him earlier, because the Party wouldn't allow him to do anything otherwise.

If Arnold had stuck with the more moderate leadership he claimed to start with and worked at hammering out reform with a more slow, deliberate compromise, he probably could have avoided this whole special election fiasco, kept his political reputation much more intact, and -- perhaps, even -- might have helped to craft some truly helpful legislation by now.

What astonishes me about all this is that voters who decided to elect as governor a Hollywood star (notice I carefully didn't call him an actor) with no political experience are now shocked, shocked to discover that he is no good at, well, politics. Does anybody remember the carefully staged, constitutional coup of a recall that brought Schwarzenegger to power in the first place? It was all about charisma and flash and arrogance, and Californians got what they paid for. And NOW they're unhappy? Pathetic. Almost as pathetic as the 60% of Americans experiencing "buyer's remorse" for electing a President who had managed to fail upwards for his entire life until there was no higher position to fail upwards to. And now a significant number of the voters who put the failure in power are howling about being saddeled with a failed administration. Well, I guess nobody could have seen that coming. Beyond pathetic.

There are a few items missing from Chris Thompson's discussion of Arnold that a less selective treatment of the subject would have mentioned.

First, in discussing Arnold's loss of popularity, it might have been nice to mention his veto of legislation affecting nutrition supplement businesses he was receiving millions of dollars from. Some of us wacky Californians didn't take too kindly to that.

The author of the article accepts Arnold's terminology in calling public employees "special interests" and blaming the budget crisis on them. It should be noted that Warren Buffett, who advises Arnold on such things, thinks that California has an income problem caused by Prop 13, not an expenditure problem. Your article suggests that California's problems are caused by employees' unreasonable beliefs that they should receive a pension when they retire. Not only are pension plans not the cause of the budget shortfall, there is nothing unreasonable about pensions plans.

Arnold's "reforms" did nothing to address that problem. He did not take on special interests like large corporations -- his "reforms" would have left those special interests the only ones allowed to participate in the political process while teachers, nurses and public employees would not be allowed to compete. Meanwhile, Arnold has been raising money from his favored special interests at a rate greater than Gray Davis had been bringing it in.

The details of the various propositions, unmentioned in the article, matter. Prop 76 would have allowed the governor virtually unchecked, dictatorial power to gut the education budget. And I grew up in a country where checks and balances were thought of as good things! Prop 74 would have done nothing to increase teacher training or reduce class size. The redistricting measure, Prop 77, contained instructions on how to draw districts that would have resulted in minority voters being crammed into a few districts.

Perhaps because it conflicts with the narrative of Arnold as a libertarian, the article neglects to mention Prop 73, the abortion parental notice initiative. This contained the worst poison pill of all, as it directed courts to publish the names of judges approving minor's petitions to have abortions. It wasn't that long ago that people were worried about violence against judges. Now an initiative was being pushed that would have required the courts to give the anti-abortion people who target doctors and clinics a list of which judges they would most like to go after. Even if the information were only used in elections, this provision of Prop 73 was still completely unjustifiable, since there would be no way to determine whether the judges were making the right decision under the law or not (unless one accepts the belief that only one decision, denything the petition, could be the right decision).

I voted no on Arnold's initiatives, and I'm glad they all lost. I only wish that Salon had chosen to wonder whether I might have had good reasons for voting as I did instead of publishing a puff piece portraying poor Arnold exactly as he sees himself, the victim of the "special interests" composed of people who work for a living, valiantly fighting for the "regular people" who are the CEOs of multinational corporations....

The author writes:

"Taking power from unions that inflict this kind of pain on the people they purport to serve doesn't seem like such a bad idea."

How very interesting. I will accept this proposition right after similar measures are taken to curtail the political power of large corporate interests. Heck, with what Enron bilked out of Californians, I would wager you could fund a pretty decent pension plan.

The author's view on unions betrays the typical upper class conceit that it is they who are most qualified to lead the helpless masses. Thus they give themselves tax breaks and other advantages while simultaneously attempting to curtail what little power the people have left to them, through tort "reform", union busting, and other anti-social measures. Ultimately they will succeed only in scuttling the mechanism whereby elites and huge corporate interests can be forced to act in a socially responsible and sustainable manner. I doubt this is what is best for California or our Nation.