Schwarzenegger Has Long Helped Children

What does Steve Lopez have against Arnold Schwarzenegger? In his Nov. 8 column, “Will Conan the Republican Come to the State’s Rescue?” he describes Schwarzenegger as having “no experience and no known political positions.” With a minimum of research one can discover that, since 1979, Schwarzenegger has served as the weight-training coach for the Special Olympics; he served as chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness (his mission being to improve fitness for American children, to increase parental involvement in their children’s fitness and to promote community-based fitness programs); and, since 1991, he has been executive commissioner of the Hollenbeck Inner-City Games in Los Angeles, a mini-Olympics designed to help kids say no to drugs and violence and yes to fitness as a way of life.

Schwarzenegger has been involved in helping make children’s lives better for many years. He may very well run for political office, and I can’t understand how that would not be a positive event. I happened to meet Schwarzenegger on a number of random occasions and found him to be friendly and charming (warm and fuzzy), not at all the “puffed-up immigrant” that Lopez portrays him as. In light of recent political scandals, how refreshing to have a possible candidate who really does care about making life better for young Americans and has the conviction to do just that.

Ann Doty

Marina del Rey

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Re “Will ‘Terminator’ Be Back ... in Politics?” Nov. 7: Please take note of the way Schwarzenegger uses voodoo economics to pay for his Proposition 49. If this is the way he can take a good idea and force it into an inflexible, moronically conceived measure, imagine what he would do as governor? It will take the courts to sort out this mess. Please keep him in the movies, where reality doesn’t count and budgets are always ignored. California doesn’t need the Terminator.

J. Fairchild Williams

Claremont