If there was any lingering life left to the quaint notion that we reward our elected leaders based on performance, then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put it to rest once and for all.

Polls show the governor with positive ratings approaching 70 percent, yet his performance is such that even Gray Davis would have to qualify as an adequate chief executive.

My suspicions and warnings about the Austrian Oak were chalked up by many to the cynicism inevitably born of two decades of hosting talk radio programs. In those years I have seen political pied pipers come and go. Invariably, they have flashed across our radar screens, first as champions then as inept failures or even scoundrels, always leaving in their wake a path of broken promises along with disappointed and discouraged voters.

I have known all along, and the governor insists on continually confirming, that what I was responding to was not my cynicism, but rather something else spawned by all those years of dealing with politicians and their spinmeisters and masters and that is my sense of smell.

My nose can sniff out a phony before he even comes across the horizon.

Arnold has had my nose working overtime since well before his announcement on Leno that he was going to run for the office.

Of 15 specific promises made by candidate Arnold to deal with the inseparable state budget and governance crises (as aired on my KFBK 1530 AM talk show during our occasional œArnold-Alerts), fully 13 have been abandoned, or broken and pronounced fulfilled (which seems to be good enough for most people, particularly editorial writers and the Capitol press corps).

Promises to open state government to public scrutiny have been forgotten, and in some cases actively opposed by this governor. His repeated vow to the people to end backroom secret handshakes has been replaced by an escalation of such deals. The backrooms (actually, the patio outside the Governor’s Office) are now swirling with good old-fashioned cigar smoke, courtesy of the governor and as a (coincidental?) tribute to the likes James Michael Curley, Richard Daley, Tammany Hall and the powerful political machines like them that thrived on raiding the public treasury for their lubrication.

The broom held high over the candidates head as he vowed to “clean up Sacramento” has become a shovel with which the governor throws money into Gray Davis rat holes, but at a volume and velocity that the pale, frail Robo-Gov could only fantasize about.

The special interests that were to be vanquished by the people’s candidate now plough the peoples governor with a torrent of cash roughly twice that with which they intoxicated Mr. Davis. It has been reported that some $122,000 per day flows into the governor’s political accounts. The previous undisputed champion recipient of such special-interest largesse, Davis, averaged around $50,000 a day and topped out in the low 90s in his all-out battle to fight being recalled.

Granted, there are limits to gubernatorial power, even in a crisis. However, Schwarzenegger has exasperated the situation, and extended and fortified those limits by engaging in a seemingly endless parade of secret handshakes and deals worked out amid the smoke, and out of public view.

But there still are things that can be done if not with the stroke of a pen, certainly with little effort ֖ that would invoke widespread public support.

For example, we pay hundreds of millions of dollars per year in penalties to the federal government in just two programs: welfare and child support collection.
California welfare recipients enjoy nine years of benefits, nearly twice the allowable limit of five years. Not only do Golden State working stiffs have to pick up 100 percent of the additional years of benefits, but we also pay massive fines to Washington as our consequence for failing to be responsible stewards of the publics money.

Federal regulations mandate that child support collection be computerized and that systems be put in place by the states to reduce errors and fraud, and to track down deadbeat parents. This is a change that could be done today. I am told that it could be done by simple executive order (the same way that Arnold ditched the illegal tripling of the state vehicle tax). The governor refuses to do so, instead preferring a seven-year “transitional period, during which we remain out of compliance.

Working Californians, already suffering under massive economic pressures, must continue to cough up some $200 million a year in fines (plus hundreds of millions more in unnecessary benefits to recipients) for the privilege of maintaining Schwarzenegger’s inaction on just this one issue alone.

Candidate Schwarzenegger, champion of the people, had it right. Money-grubbing politicos sucking in special-interest money, the working mans hard-earned money being squandered on foolishness bordering on the criminal, using that working man’s sweat as currency to satisfy personal political ambition, secret deals, an out-of-control Legislature and political indifference to the citizenry all were part of the problem.

Governor Schwarzenegger, champion of the special interests, replaced Candidate Schwarzenegger. The broom and tough talk have been replaced by wisecracks, like calling the stateŒs Democrats girlie men’ for defying him on the remaining minor issues that are stalling the budget. Substance has been replaced by style or was it substance? Perhaps it was just a well-written script for the actor֒s next role.

Sadly, it appears that all that remains of the promising champion of the people is a Cheshire Grin, and all that remains of the promises is a trail of betrayal.