Few Among Crowds Heed Governor’s Call to Action

In its first rollout since he took office a month ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s perpetual campaign machine got mixed reviews.

Big crowds appeared in San Diego, in Bakersfield and in this west San Joaquin Valley farm town-turned-commuter village when the governor showed up to play politics. He urged the public again and again to phone or write or e-mail their legislators and demand action on his then-stalled plan for $15 billion in bonds and a spending limit to keep state budgets in balance.

As Schwarzenegger had hoped, they came and they cheered. But when it was time for them to put pressure on key lawmakers that the Republican governor needed to sway, the results were not ground-shaking.

Some of the Democratic legislators targeted by Schwarzenegger reported up to 200 calls and e-mails in the first few hours after the new governor dropped into their districts. Others said they got only about 20.

At least publicly, Democrats insisted Schwarzenegger’s message failed to achieve the crush of unrelenting public pressure that can make a lawmaker quake.

“It wasn’t really even close to what we’ve gotten on other issues,” said Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, a Democrat from nearby Pittsburg. A bill to limit dove hunting generated 3,000 calls, Canciamilla said. His office answered 100 calls after the Tracy rally.

“I don’t know that this was the place I personally would have planted my flag if I was the governor,” Canciamilla said. “Bonds aren’t terribly sexy. The devil is in the details.”

Message Getting Out

But in the way that counts most -- getting results -- the governor’s big push proved a triumph, his aides said. They credit the whirlwind stops and radio and TV appearances with helping nudge Democrats toward Schwarzenegger’s fiscal recovery plan, which lawmakers endorsed this week.

“We thought the week was very successful,” said Rob Stutzman, the governor’s communications chief. “The only metric here isn’t phone calls. He’s communicating a message that includes calling people to civic activity.”

That mission was accomplished as far as Michael Pyefinch and his wife, Melissa, were concerned.

The couple had headed out for lunch when they spotted the satellite masts of TV news trucks parked outside the Tracy mall where Schwarzenegger appeared. Curious, they waded inside and found a spot at the back between a row of food-court eateries and the mall’s merry-go-round.

They nodded their heads as Schwarzenegger called on the crowd to “flex your muscles again” and “do the extraordinary” by dialing up their elected representatives and pushing for approval of his deficit-reduction proposals. “Do I have your promise?” the governor shouted to cheers from the throng. “Do I have your promise? Do I have your promise?”

“He energized us,” declared Michael Pyefinch, owner of a small high-tech business.

After the rally, Pyefinch e-mailed his state senator, party officials, even the governor himself.

“This brought us out of our political shell,” he said. “We’re going to be politically active now and in the future. We’re not going to take it for granted anymore.”

But for every Mike and Melissa Pyefinch there seemed to be a Caitlin Hinman.

Hinman, 17, skipped out at lunch with fellow high school senior Sara Pruter to attend Schwarzenegger’s rally.

They angled toward the front of the crowd, finding a roost a dozen feet from the stage.

Hinman, who notes she will get to vote for the first time in next November’s presidential election, came away a tad disappointed.

“I thought he’d let us know what he was going to do for us, but he just kept talking about the car tax,” said Hinman, who didn’t bother calling any of her local lawmakers afterward. “I just didn’t take that much away from it.”

Worse, she sees the possibility that the novelty of a Hollywood governor could wear off. “I think most people were there just to see the Terminator,” Hinman concluded. “I have a feeling he could become passe.”

In fact, the governor will probably limit his whirlwind statewide tours to a few per year, focusing on key issues, aides said. Don’t be surprised to see a tour revival, they said, when his bond and spending cap measures hit the ballot this March, or during the midsummer budget battles or November’s election.

“There’s a balance between overexposing and underexposing,” Stutzman said. “But this is a governor connected to the people. It was a populist phenomenon that brought him here. He’s not going to hide out in the Capitol.”

More than a few Democrats used the occasion of Schwarzenegger’s absence from Sacramento to gripe that the governor would have better served the voters by sticking at the negotiating table instead of barnstorming the state.

“We understand he can generate a lot of attention,” said state Sen. Dede Alpert (D-San Diego). “But he has to understand that this is hard work. The details matter.”

Calls Make Difference

Although several legislators said they didn’t feel undue pressure from the phone calls generated by Schwarzenegger, such public entreaties make a difference, said Bob Stern, president of the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies. “Legislators aren’t used to hearing from the constituents. They’re used to the invisible Sacramento.”

Instead, Schwarzenegger’s “perpetual campaign” is shining a spotlight on the statehouse. His fame has foes taking seriously Schwarzenegger’s vow to circumvent a Democrat blockade by going straight to the ballot with initiatives next November. He also can wade in on behalf of Republican candidates in tight races.

“He’s playing to his strength,” Stern said. “His strength is not a smoke-filled room, it’s not negotiating. It’s so much easier to run for office than govern. And he is finding that out very quickly.”

Barbara O’Connor, director of Cal State Sacramento’s Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media, said focus groups conducted after some of the stops found participants “just giddy” over Schwarzenegger’s brand of “retail politics” that treats the voter as a customer in the political marketplace.

“For real people, this is the first time they’ve felt or touched or talked to someone as famous or as charming,” O’Connor said. “The time is right to continue in retail politics.”

To that end, the governor’s campaign team has stayed busy. Before the Tracy rally, e-mails and recorded phone calls from Schwarzenegger went out to local residents who are considered active voters, urging them to come to the mall and root on the governor.

“We got a call from Arnold telling us about this event,” said Dottie Sladky of Livermore, who waited more than an hour for Schwarzenegger to hit the stage in Tracy. “I had to listen three times to understand all he said.”

“We’ve been Republicans since before we were born,” explained her husband, Joe, a retired factory manager.

Dottie: “We’re conservatives to our fingertips.”

Joe: “The Terminator will pull in a lot of new people.”

Dottie: “He’s not quite a Republican like we are.”

Joe: “We’re quite conservative. But with him we have a chance to get this state’s problems behind us.”

When the governor appeared, the 2,000 in attendance roared their approval as rock music thumped through the mall.

The Sladkys craned their necks from the back of the crowd. They cupped hands to their ears. Schwarzenegger’s amplified Austrian accent bounced through the mall’s cavernous food court, nearly indiscernible amid the hubbub.

After a few minutes, the couple gave up and left, figuring they could hear the highlights on the radio.

But they didn’t leave disappointed.

“It was a great event,” Joe Sladky said later from his home. “I look at it as direct democracy. Whether or not you jump up and down on your legislator, that’s not the important part. What’s important is he’s getting people interested in what’s going on up there.”