The Terminator gives Bush lesson in consensus

JUST 12 months ago Arnold Schwarzenegger could little have imagined that this week he would be re-elected in California having overseen a raft of his reforms.

The Republican governor's ratings had taken a sharp turn southward, and his combative stance against Democrats had created gridlock in the state Congress and fulmination in opinion polls.

But Schwarzenegger's political conversion from hardliner to pragmatist, from divider to uniter, was completed this week when he smashed the challenger for his governor's post and saw his ambitious spending plans overwhelmingly approved by the electorate.

It is a lesson that the president, George Bush, would do well to heed.

In Mexico on a trade mission, Mr Schwarzenegger suggested two days after his election that the White House follow his lead in California, where he has successfully worked with Democrats and some of his most trenchant critics to create a spirit of bipartisanship in the capital, Sacramento.

"I think this is good that we have new blood coming to Washington, that we have new people with new ideas coming to Washington," he said, adding "because Washington was stuck".

He pointed out that his decision to deal with the Democrats had resulted in $37 billion (£19.4 billion) worth of bonds being raised to fund improvements in the state's crumbling infrastructure and school system.

The focus of his final term as governor will be on how to use that bipartisan spirit to forge a legacy that could propel him to greater political heights.

Mr Schwarzenegger, who has been spoken about as a presidential contender despite being barred because he was not born in the US, also voiced his support for Mr Bush's guestworker plan.

This is part of the president's effort to curb illegal immigration, just one thorny issue the administration has grappled with but failed to grasp even with his own party in charge of both Houses of Congress.

After Schwarzenegger's stinging rebuke by voters in a special legislative election he called last year, one of his first actions was to reshuffle his pack.

He brought in Matthew Dowd, a former Democrat strategist who led Mr Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and knew how to work across party lines.

He appointed Susan Kennedy, a Democrat, as his chief of staff and apologised for labelling his Democrat critics as "stooges and girly men".

Once he started achieving results with Democrats, notably on balancing the state's budget and on the minimum wage, his poll numbers steadily recovered.

Mr Bush has begun to take a similarly conciliatory tone. He has fired one of the most divisive figures in his inner circle, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary,

But it is on the domestic front, not foreign policy, where he faces his biggest challenges.

Like Mr Bush, Schwarzenegger faces a burgeoning deficit, one projected to reach $5 billion (£2.6 billion) in the next two years.

Also like Mr Bush, he has pledged not to raise taxes. And drawing lessons learned from President George Bush snr, it would be political suicide for him to break his pledge.

President Bush yesterday showed signs of adopting Arnie-style compromise, by calling Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, to the Oval Office for about 45 minutes of discussions.

"The only way to move forward is through bipartisanship and openness," said Mr Reid.

Schwarzenegger's political future depended on bipartisan efforts; now Mr Bush's legacy hangs on them, too.

Political superstar

Arnold Schwarzenegger born 30 July, 1947, in Austria.
1970: Wins the title of world's strongest man.
1982: Breakthrough role as Conan the Barbarian, goes on to star in Predator, Total Recall and The Terminator, trilogy.
2003: Elected governor of California.