Just like in one of his movie parts where the hero is seemingly defeated but rises to fight again, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has done emergency damage control by ending a big, fat contract with a muscle magazine that promised to sandbag his remaining — and waning — popularity in California with a big, fat controversy.
The Washington Post reports:
In the showdown over dueling roles as chief executive of California and figurehead for muscle magazines, the nation’s best-known former bodybuilder chose politics over striking poses.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he will end his consulting deal with Muscle & Fitness and Flex magazines, pulling the plug on at least $5 million in payments from the glossies that rely on advertising from nutritional supplement companies.
As long as I’m governor, I will not continue the relationship,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The former Mr. Universe was forced to defend his contract with the magazines after a securities disclosure filed this week showed he would be paid at least $1 million a year for five years as a consultant.
Schwarzengger’s comment came after a headline screaming story in the Los Angeles Times (see our post HERE) revealed the whopping amount of money he was getting from the magazines, the date when the contract was signed and the fact that he vetoed a bill on dietary supplements. The magazines garner much of their earnings from diet supplement ads.
When the firestorm hit, an aide said the issue was “much ado about nothing,”
So his statement qualifies as damage control — but in the end he hasn’t erased the issue since it took a big L.A. Times story to make him decide he’d end the questionable relationship. The full text of the statement he issued is here.
Critics labeled this a conflict of interest, but the Washington Post article notes:
Experts on state political law said the governor’s work for the magazines may not have represented a technical conflict of interest because it could help an entire industry rather than an individual or specific entity.
The governor does not accept his $175,000 annual salary from the state, and California law allows elected officials to keep outside jobs.
Schwarzenegger’s contract with the magazines said he would receive 1 percent of the publications’ advertising revenue each year for five years. The payment was to be no less than $1 million a year but could reach much higher.
Definitely unwise. Why?
Because a key theme of Schwarzenegger’s campaign when he triumphed in the multi-candidate governor’s recall was that unlike other politicos, he wouldn’t accept money from outside interests (he has) and he wouldn’t do business as usual. He’d be a DIFFERENT kind of politician.
And perhaps he’s right on that score: It’s hard to imagine Bill Frist, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Jeb Bush or John McCain being hired to become symbols of and editors for a muscle magazine.
Bob Dole was a high-profile of political power seeking you-know-what power when he shilled for Viagra, but that was after he left office. (Actually, Dole could have sold more Viagra with a better pitch like: “Hi I’m Bob Dole. Take Viagra and you can do to your lover what Congress does to you.”)
But as the months have passed, Schwarzenegger’s polls have steadily declined: Californians seem to unimpressed with his speeches peppered with references to films or film culture, interest groups didn’t find his blunt way of speaking appealing and used it to batter him in the media and in ads, and the California establishment he says he wants to change has dug in its heels. Add to that his increasing image as just another Republican governor politician (versus a highly independent political figure who is a Republican but actually defies labels) — and this was a no-win situation for Schwarzenegger.
Note that you don’t see a ton of stories anymore about possible petition drives to change the constitution to let someone born outside the U.S. run for the highest office. It now it seems as likely Schwarzenegger will ever become President as Dennis Kucinch winning the White House in 2008. Or 2012. Or 20016.
So, in the end, Schwarzenegger cut his financial windfall in order to cut his political losses.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.