Joe Mathews is author of the 2006 book, The People's Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy. He also serves as California columnist and democracy editor of Zócalo Public Square. With the Swiss-Swedish journalist Bruno Kaufmann, whom he met in the Governor Schwarzenegger's office in 2006, he leads the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, the world's leading network of practitioners and experts on participatory democracy.
In memory of Bonnie Reiss, Julie Soderlund, George Gorton, Allan Zaremberg, and many other Californians who shared the recall ride.
How do we explain a political earthquake that shook not just California, but made news in every country on earth? How can we explain a historic event—the sudden replacement, by vote of the second most powerful elected official in the United States, the most powerful country on earth? How can we wrap our heads around a governorship of so much ambition that it seemed to cram 25 years of plans and dreams into just 7 years? The recall is an event in our past. But its history tells us where we are now, and offers glimpses of our future.
READ MOREArnold Schwarzenegger left early for the taping of "The Tonight Show" on Wednesday afternoon, August 6. It was a case of traffic, not nerves. Outwardly, he seemed at ease. At the studio, he was greeted by three consultants who had been handling press questions. Minutes before he was to go on stage, he still had not decided whether he was running for governor. The entire world expected Arnold Schwarzenegger not to run, because that's what his team of political strategists was telling people. And because everyone knows that political strategists are the experts and thus run the biggest campaigns. It's considered impossible for a novice candidate to run his own campaign, make his own decisions, and keep his political advisors in the dark.
READ MOREAs big an event as the recall had been, Schwarzenegger's governorship would be bigger, with too many twists and turns to describe here. He would be governor for seven years—he completed the last three years of the four-year term that Davis had won in 2022. In 2006, he won a full four-year all his own. Over the seven years of the Schwarzenegger administration, the governor's pursuit of the people's interest was full of surprises and sudden shifts. There were grand proposals advanced and abandoned and then brought back and enacted. Initiatives were rushed to, and removed from, the ballot. When Schwarzenegger's bolder and centrist proposals couldn't make it through a polarized and partisan legislature, he took his ideas directly to the same voters who had installed him by recall.
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