Will Conan the Republican Come to the State’s Rescue?

The evidence has never been more clear, my fellow Californians. We are out of step with the rest of the country, and headed deep into the wilderness of the American fringe.

Unfortunately, being such nutball contrarians is going to cost us, and there may be only one man who can save us from getting our ears boxed.

I’m talking about the last-ditch hope for California -- Conan the Republican. I’ll get to him in a minute, but first let me give you the bad news about where we stand.

The rest of the nation marched single file to the right on election day, handing Congress over to Republicans in a ringing endorsement of President Bush.

Not us.

We even added a Democrat to our lopsided congressional delegation, running the count to 33-20, and earning more contempt from those who control the nation’s purse strings.

One White House advisor, surveying the landscape for my colleague Mark Barabak, had this to say about California:

“The problem is the state is such a sinkhole for money.”

He might as well have told us to drop dead.

Say what they will about us, but I still can’t figure out precisely what stirred the rest of the republic to pat the president on the back.

The economy?

No, it’s in the tank.

The call to war?

Couldn’t be that. When you look past the first question in every poll, most Americans have doubts about the mission and fears about the costs.

The federal surplus?

Whoops.

U.S. energy policy?

Maybe that’s it. Environmentalists have been spotted leaping from bridges, oil barons are lighting cigars, and musk oxen are fleeing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ahead of the drilling rigs.

So exactly how out of step are we in loopy California, which established landmark tailpipe emissions controls while the White House was saying no to the Kyoto Protocol?

We elected nothing but Democrats to statewide office Tuesday, and if the one race in which they’re still counting votes falls into line, it’ll be the first time since 1946 that either party pitched a shutout.

It gets even crazier.

When Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) greeted the Republican sweep with the rally cry “Let’s roll,” San Franciscans thought he meant joints.

That city gave a 2-1 thumbs up to a medical marijuana study in foolish defiance of federal prohibitions, which means San Francisco may soon go into the pot-growing business. If so, they’d better rearm the Presidio in case of a visit from the CIA’s Predator aircraft, which is ready to go after clearing out a weed patch in Yemen.

California needs help, and we need it fast.

There’s only one guy who can save us from scorn and ridicule and get us back in step with the rest of the nation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Who else can muscle our share of pork out of Congress?

Who else in the entire state can call the White House and get past voicemail?

The biggest winner Tuesday in California wasn’t the governor or any other Democrat.

It was Ahhhhnold.

Mr. Terminator was the force behind Proposition 49, the winning initiative that will finance after-school programs. Proposition 49 was not a whim for Schwarzenegger. Trust me, it was part of a calculated plan to launch a political career.

This tells us, among other things, that Schwarzenegger is no idiot. The man has murdered something like 275 people in the movies, so he needed a warm and fuzzy cause to redeem himself after so much gratuitous bloodshed.

He apparently couldn’t think of a pro-grandmothers initiative or a pro-puppies proposition. So instead he tossed in $1 million of his own and championed the pro-kids Prop. 49, which, by the way, will burgle up to $550 million from the state general fund without the say-so of legislators or the governor.

“Nine cameras,” his gloating political advisor said of the TV news hacks who swarmed like flies at the Prop. 49 victory celebration. My colleague Carla Hall noted that Schwarzenegger’s makeup artist was on hand for touch-ups.

It was no ordinary photo op. It was the unofficial beginning of his campaign for governor in 2006, or perhaps for U.S. Senate.

I’m not sure I can explain how a puffed-up immigrant who made a fortune killing people on screen, has virtually no experience and no known political positions, can be the brightest -- and only -- hope for the state GOP.

But it’s crazy enough to make sense, and we can’t wait four years for him to throw himself in front of the train. Schwarzenegger strikes me as a shoot-now-ask-questions-later guy, sort of like President Bush. Let somebody else worry about the details.

“I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is bright, ambitious, focused, able to take direction, and clearly he has the fire in the belly,” says Arnie Steinberg, a Republican political strategist.

Of course, Democrat Rob “Meathead” Reiner, of “All in the Family” fame, might be standing in Arnold’s way down the road.

The rest of the country can make fun of us all they want, but I think they envy all the fun we’re having. Even our shoplifters are movie stars.

*

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez

@latimes.com.