Pumping irony

Thrilling local Republicans and confusing stroller-pushing moms who just wanted to check out the Father’s Day sale at J.C. Penney, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on June 10 visited Chico for what amounted to a short stump speech masquerading as a budget rally.

Taking a cue from ‘80s pop star Tiffany, Schwarzenegger chose the Chico Mall as his stage, giving management only a day’s notice.

While waiting for the governor to arrive, roadies from a professional lighting and sound company piped in modern rock songs by the likes of Green Day and Outkast to entertain the expectant crowd. Local right-wing talk show host Bruce Sessions (statewide media types, confused, turned to locals asking, “Who is this guy?") took the podium first to introduce the state officials that would precede Gov. Schwarzenegger: Assemblymen Doug La Malfa and Rick Keene, along with Sen. Sam Aanestad. After each said a few words—mostly jibes about how Democrats in the Legislature were constantly raising taxes and giving money away to the apparently villainous but wholly undefined “special-interest” lobby—Schwarzenegger took the stage to a bass-heavy hip-hop beat and collective scream from the audience.

Starting off with what was either an embarrassing gaffe or a joke that bombed—it was impossible to tell which—Schwarzenegger told the crowd, “It’s great to be here in Chino.”

He quickly recovered and thanked Chicoans for supporting his gubernatorial bid and then launched into a combination of stand-up comedy, recitation of movie lines and campaigning for support of his recent budget proposal.

For once, the mall’s air-conditioning provided little help, as more than 2,000 onlookers crammed into the west side of the mall near the food court, where one vendor offered for sale the “Terminator burrito.” There were rumors that Schwarzenegger owns stock in the Chico Mall’s parent corporation, General Growth Properties, but actually he’s a partner with a Midwest mall developer as well as retailer the Limited.

Among the attendees were about 50 media representatives from around the state, corralled into a special area fitted with risers for cameras. While reporters from Chico’s NCN News posed for snapshots in front of the throng, their big-city counterparts were nonplussed.

“You can see the governor a lot, but you can’t get close to him,” said John Lobertini, Sacramento bureau chief for KPIX, a CBS affiliate in San Francisco. He came to Chico on the off chance of being able to ask the governor about the impending state budget vote. “It’s the timing of this event, and really the accessibility.”

Schwarzenegger took no questions, however.

Judging from interviews, the audience’s motivation for being at the mall that day was evenly split between wanting to see a governor and wanting to see a celebrity. With his speech, the governor managed to give a little of both. Noting some bodybuilder fans near the front of the stage, he assured them that that he still took time to “pump up” every day. The substance of his speech was basically that his budget proposed no new taxes yet kept spending within reasonable limits. He offered no details about how this was being accomplished, but the crowd clearly didn’t care. Even some audience members who said they did not vote for Schwarzenegger said after his speech that they supported him now.

Getting a bigger cheer than reforming workers’ comp and repealing the car tax was Schwarzenegger’s promise to bar illegal aliens from receiving driver’s licenses. He even scored with a fat joke, noting that he lifted 285 pounds last week when he “lifted Teddy Kennedy out of his chair.”

While a few in attendance noted the irony of the governor mixing lines from his movies with statements of policy, most audience members gushed, shrieked and yahooed when the governor told them he would “terminate new taxes” and say “hasta la vista, baby” to special-interest lobbyists. It was unclear why he didn’t offer to tell the lobbyists “fug you azzhol” or threaten to “see my enemies driven before me and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

Camera phones were raised in the air, along with Terminator videotapes children hoped to have signed during the about two minutes Schwarzenegger spent pushing through the crowd.

While the governor urged state legislators to “leave your partisan baggage at the door,” the event was essentially a rally for Republicans. In the crowd, local party operatives were seen telling spectators who had brought signs saying anything other than “No New Taxes” to lower them or be escorted out. One woman, a representative of Valley Oak Children’s Services who was holding a sign that read “Save Child Care,” said one of the operatives impersonated a mall security officer when he told her to lower her sign.

“They told us to put our signs down because it was a political protest and they weren’t going to allow political protests,” said Jane Haberman, Valley Oak’s outreach administrator.

When the operative was asked by a reporter who had granted him such authority, the operative replied, “The law, so it’s OK. It’s private property,” as he slipped away through the crowd.

It seemed an excessive and unnecessary tactic to employ on a group of people that was overwhelmingly in awe of their movie star governor, whose buff and tan physical presence, gleaming white teeth and high charm quotient kept most of the audience in rapturous attention throughout his approximately 15-minute speech.

Butte County Chief Administrative Officer Paul McIntosh, who watched the governor speak but was unable to meet him, said he was impressed, both by the governor’s personal magnetism and his apparent leadership skills.

“I’ve seen governors and even presidents speak and never seen a crowd so affected,” he said. As for the governor’s performance in Sacramento, McIntosh said the county was “extremely appreciative of [the governor’s] support for local governments” and that, prior to the recall that bounced Democratic governor Gray Davis from office, “the state was starving for leadership.

“We may have disagreements on the particular direction of some things, but at least we’re getting somewhere," McIntosh said.