August 12, 2003 - Unlike the men and women that George Bush has sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and now Liberia the “real bullets” that the Terminator will face in the next two months won’t scar him with physical wounds. When the “land mines” strewn on his road to Sacramento go off no-one will be killed or maimed. But, as the California State Democratic Chairman warned the Austrian muscle man the rhetorical bullets and landmine issues won’t be scripted to be resolved by the last reel. “Hasta La Vista, Baby” won’t do as a response. The Terminator is going to learn that lesson the hard way. As the boss of Chicago’s notorious First Ward once put it, “Politics ain’t bean-bag!”

The political snipers are already shooting but the fires are coming from an unexpected direction. The last commercial had barely rolled on the Tonight Show when Matt Drudge posted a photo of a young Arnold grinning as a topless babe; her face carefully cropped away; riding on his shoulders. Rupert Murdock went to London to publish an account of the Terminator groping two attractive British TV talk show hosts in his SUN tabloid. Anticipating the denials, Murdock illustrated the article with a photo supposedly clipped from the taped broadcast of one of the shows. The next day Rush barely paused to wipe the foam from his lips before launching into a tirade against the candidate as a closet Liberal! The aimed fire is coming from Arnold’s right flank and those aren’t the “real bullets that the Chairman Mulholland was talking about.

Politics ain’t beanbag and Sacramento isn’t Muscle Beach or a movie set. The dialogue is not scripted. Arnold is going to have to dodge the real bullets of campaigning and meeting the issues head on. Lines like “Hasta La Vista” and “I’ll be BAAACK” aren’t solutions to the California fiscal crises. He and his handlers are going to have to come up with real alternatives, to either enhance state revenues of cut state costs. It is a real problem that will demand more than pulp fiction solutions. The continuing energy crisis is another of those real bullets Arnold is going to face. In his announcement he pointed to the loss of jobs in California. What is his plan to restore a healthy job market for the thousands of software and system engineers who have become discouraged workers in the depressed economy of Silicon Valley? That is one of the toughest bullets he has to dodge.

All the time he has to dodge the landmines in his path – Gay Marriage; Abortion; Immigrant’s rights; and School Mandates - including his own after and before school programs that the Neo-Cons call the Nanny State. Any one of these may explode and disable his roll to victory. That comfortable early counting of a bare quarter of the California voters may evaporate quickly as the campaign gets into high gear. It is way too early for Arnold to be planning an inauguration address.