He’s Just the Man for Heavy Lifting

It’s the noon hour Thursday at Gold’s Gym in Fullerton, and 28-year-old Eric Bengali is finishing a workout. At a time when normal people are knocking back sodas or beers with their lunchtime cheeseburgers or settling for a walk around the block for exercise, Bengali is doing triceps pushdowns with 170 pounds of weights attached.

That’s called dedication and discipline. It’s the only way you survive in the world of bodybuilding. It’s the world that Arnold Schwarzenegger came from, and on this, the first full day of his candidacy for California governor, I thought it’d be interesting to return to Arnold’s roots and see what his descendants have to say about him.

Sometimes, a person leaves the place he came from and never comes back. Let’s say he becomes rich and famous and leaves his old pals behind.

Not Arnold. The man who would be governor still is revered in these dens of sweat and iron. And if he could make it here, they seem to be saying, he can make it anywhere.

“You just can’t come in here and train once a week,” Bengali says. “You’ve got to come in and train five or six days a week, and you need two or three hours a day. And that’s just beginners. So for someone who has the dedication and ability to put himself through that, I don’t see what job he couldn’t do.”

Like several other bodybuilders I talk to, Denise Hoshor says she doesn’t know a lot about Arnold, but then again, she does. She knows what it takes to come from nowhere and become a reigning Mr. Universe, as Schwarzenegger was in the 1970s. She knows you don’t get there for free.

It is Schwarzenegger’s career arc -- from humble beginnings to international superstar -- that may convince Yvette Williams, an amateur bodybuilder under Hoshor’s tutelage, to vote for him.

“Arnold didn’t get rich overnight,” Williams, 46, says. “He had to work his way to the top. So he knows how it is to be poor and how it is to be rich. The economy is bad, and a lot of people are struggling. I think he’d work for people who are struggling and still poor.”

Arnold’s lack of political experience? “What is the definition of politics?” asks Hoshor, 32. “I want to know the person from the honest, truthful standpoint, outside of politics. And I also believe someone who hasn’t been involved or immersed in it can see it from an outside perspective more than someone who’s been in there all along.”

A former Mr. California, Mark Anthony Christensen, agrees. “People are so fed up with politicians being full of [baloney]. I view him as being more honest. I don’t think he has anything to gain financially, obviously. He’s already got a [bleeping] bigger name than any politician out there, so he’s not doing it for fame. I think he sincerely wants to help California. He’s not doing it for any other reason. Sure, I’d [bleeping] vote for him.”

Bengali, of Orange, says he’d pull the lever for Arnold unless he shows he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “But I know he knows what hard work is.”

A novice governor? “How much worse could he possibly do?” Bengali says, laughing.

Arnold’s work ethic aside, Bengali says, there’s the star factor. “We’re a state that’s all about show, and we need someone who has a face.”

Granted, bodybuilders don’t form a large bloc of California voters. But people who like rags-to-riches stories, people who think a candidate is honest, people who want their politicians to be dedicated to the task at hand, people who want their politicians to be impervious to moneyed interests -- now that’s a large bloc of voters.

And if such a candidate just happens to be self-deprecating and a movie star ... well, all I can say is good luck to the rest of the field in the recall election.

Dana Parsons’ column

appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be

reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.