[notafraudster]

So, basically nothing about this tracks. Arnold would have been best characterized as a right-liberal during his time in politics. He was a moderate Republican in a state that was already pretty left-leaning. Since then he's drifted a little left (focusing on criticizing Trump mostly on compassionate grounds, focusing on civic engagement, and focusing on environmental issues). I think he'd best be characterized in the global scale as something between a right-liberal and a left-liberal. The Atlantic has basically Washington Consensus politics, a little left on some issues, but basically market liberals. Maybe a more simplified way to put this: The Atlantic likely would have been closer to Clinton in the 2016 primaries than Sanders, and closer to Biden in 2020 primaries than Warren than Sanders. So it's true that they don't have identical politics, but it's not true that they're really at odds.

His life story is really inspirational, but his terms as governor sort of exposed he didn't have a great aptitude for elected politics. After he got whooped in his 2nd year midterm on the bond issues, he acknowledged that to be an effective governor he needed to get better at working with the legislature and making the case for his priorities. Then he served another six years with no major accomplishments; he never really felt like he was in the driver's seat after that midterm. He remained personally likeable, and it's true that Democrats put up only a token challenge to his second term election, but this maybe emphasizes the point: he was not in control of the issue agenda in the state, he wasn't a real threat. He didn't do a terrible job as governor, but he did do a very passive job. And in his second term when he did try to engage with the legislature, it didn't work, and mostly (as the article notes) his popularity eroded significantly. After leaving politics, he didn't really stay engaged in the party or build connections in the state, and indeed it's telling that Republicans have had a terrible record in California since.

He's never sought any federal office, and I have no idea why the article accepts the false premise that after being Governor, the only other option is to run for President. He could have, of course, ran as a Senator (Governors often do this!), ran for the house (Governors occasionally do this!), gotten involved in executive politics by taking any of a number of federal appointments that could have been open for him (or made a case for a cabinet position). He didn't. The article suggests he wouldn't mind being Secretary of State. If that were true, we'd expect him to have done... uh... literally anything connected to diplomacy in the 15 years since he left elected office?

And frankly a lot of his public engagement with politics over the last few years has been pretty surface level. He's talking directly to the public, mostly in (yes, well articulated) platitudes. I agree with him on all these issues and I'm glad he's using his bully pulpit to advocate for good things that I agree with. But mostly that's where the engagement stops. He's not day-to-day running civil society organizations, he's not building connections with politicians, he's just sort of weighing in in the same way a lot of people do on issues he cares about.

I do think there's a lot to admire in Arnold (his life story is amazing). and I don't have any hostility towards him. He's funny, he's using his platform for good, he's a sports hero, he's a unique and fun actor. I don't think he's great at doing electoral politics.

[greedo]

I think the Atlantic is just assuming that since Reagan was an actor, who became California governor and then went on to the White House, so naturally, Arnold who follow this template.

Also, the California governorship is not an effective model since the Legislature holds so much power and is so dysfunctional.

[scarface74]

(hopefully by focusing on two current Republican governors and praising one and hopefully being even handed, this doesn’t turn into a political back and forth. I’m not really interested in getting into Democrat vs Republican whataboutism)

I can never see myself personally vote Republican because even the Republican politicians that I don’t have any personal antipathy toward (ie what are now called “RINOs”) still enable the ones that have cultural policies I disagree with.

That being said, I have to admit that I think some of the best governors are the Republican governors that “don’t do anything” besides act like a CEO and are more concerned with governing, bringing business into a state, balancing the budget, and don’t get into the culture wars.

I lived in GA until last year and I can say that every governor both Republican and Democrat have fit that mold since I actually started paying attention in the mid 90s.

The current Republican governor Kemp fits into that mold. He didn’t kowtow to the “election is stolen” crap. He didn’t get into the mud with Trump during his election or primary and he even signed a law making citizens arrest illegal after what happens with Ahmaud Arbery.

He even fought to bring in the “Soros controlled clean energy” Rivian manufacturing plant.

Now I live in Orlando, and Desantis is the exact opposite of Kemp.

[j7f3]

Yeah I have never followed him much at all but my gut feeling about him pretty much agrees with you. Still no one is perfect and I think he was a better than average politician among his peers. I think one of his problems was that in an era of tea party and trumpism taking over the republican party he had no hope there. His best bet in politics was probably running for Senate but I suspect he was more ambitious than that.