Outsider’s Quick Turn as Politician

Day by day, the outsider image that Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken pains to project is clashing with the reality of his campaign.

The gubernatorial candidate who vowed to “clean house” in Sacramento, after what he suggested would be a campaign financed with his own millions, has hired professional fund-raisers who are soliciting money from developers and other donors with a stake in state business.

His campaign is led by Sacramento insiders who ran the state for most of the 1990s. And Schwarzenegger, who has pledged to run a positive campaign, has not only pounded Democratic rival Cruz Bustamante for his politics, but also made fun of his appearance.

“He is another politician,” said Larry Berg, retired director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “What he’s found out is he’s unable to keep up the facade: He wanted us all to believe that he wasn’t.”

The dissonance between Schwarzenegger’s rhetoric and his actual campaign has caught the attention of opponents. On Tuesday, state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, tried to raise doubts about the actor’s trustworthiness by citing the “spate of special interest money” flowing into Schwarzenegger’s campaign. So far, Schwarzenegger has collected at least $1.4 million from outside donors.

“He pledged that he would not be raising money from special interests, and now he’s getting money from every special interest in the state, including some of the biggest land developers in California,” McClintock said on CNN. “So he’s already broken that pledge.”

When Schwarzenegger launched his campaign three weeks ago, he repeatedly called himself an outsider who would reform the system in Sacramento. Since then, he has returned to that theme at nearly every campaign appearance, saying he could not be bought by special interests.

“I am rich enough that I don’t have to take anyone’s money,” he told CNN on Aug. 8. “I can go to Sacramento and I make decisions that are the wisest decisions for the people and not what is best for the special interests.”

In Los Angeles last week, he said, “I am not taking money from anyone.”

But Schwarzenegger has been raising money aggressively from donors with business before the state, including leaders of the agriculture, technology, wine and real estate industries, records and interviews show. The wealthy Brentwood actor has donated $2 million to his campaign, but has hired about half a dozen Republican fund-raisers to collect perhaps millions more. Among them is Kristen Hueter of San Francisco, a fund-raiser for President Bush.

Schwarzenegger plans to attend multiple fund-raising events next month. He is scheduled to collect money from wine industry leaders in the Sonoma Valley on Sept. 6. Agriculture donors will provide checks at Salinas-area events Sept. 10

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper has invited major donors to “an intimate dinner with Arnold” on Sept. 22 after a VIP reception in Atherton for anyone who raises or contributes $10,000 to the actor’s campaign.

The invitation, posted by Draper on the Internet, said donors who “max out at $21,200” -- the legal limit for candidate donations -- would be invited to a “special dinner at Arnold’s home” after the election.

Robert M. Stern, co-author of the campaign money reforms adopted by California voters in 1974, said Schwarzenegger’s fund-raising contradicts his pledge to take on special interests.

“It gets them access to him,” Stern said. “It gets them his ear. It may not get policy decisions, but at least they have an opportunity to present their case.”

Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center, a public policy center at USC, said in a recent interview that he was confused by the contradiction between Schwarzenegger’s statements about taking money and his fund-raising.

“Is he saying that taking money is somehow different from fund-raising?” Kaplan said. “It’s as though he is saying: ‘It depends on what the definition of fund-raising is.’ ”

He noted that Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood supporters could be called special interests because they lobby in Sacramento on legislation affecting their industry. “This for me is a big issue,” Kaplan said.

Schwarzenegger acknowledged in a radio interview Tuesday that he was “getting money from various different corporations, various different individuals and all those things.”

“But what I’m saying is that it’s wrong to take money, for instance, from the unions, for instance, when you know you’re going to have to negotiate with the unions as governor,” he said on KTKZ-AM radio in Sacramento. “It is wrong, for instance, to take money from the Native Americans when you negotiate with the Native Americans. I think any of those kind of real powerful special interests, if you take money from them, you owe them something.”

He was referring to groups that have contributed to his rivals.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman said the actor was “not participating in the special interest game,” as he said McClintock was. He also defended Schwarzenegger’s statement Monday that Bustamante was “Gray Davis with a receding hairline and a mustache.”

“It was jocular, and I think Cruz can take it, especially since his consultant was calling us names,” Stutzman said. “I think the voters’ notion of what a negative campaign is is much more dramatic.”

Stutzman defended Schwarzenegger’s hiring of Sacramento insiders Bob White, Martin Wilson and other veterans of former Gov. Pete Wilson’s administration. Martin Wilson’s consulting firm, Public Strategies, lists energy, telecommunications and financial companies as clients.

Stutzman said there was nothing inconsistent with the pledge to challenge special interests in the Capitol.

“He’s drawing on the expertise of a very well-experienced, bright and creative campaign team,” Stutzman said.

Schwarzenegger’s critics say the candidate has been most like a traditional politician in his policy pronouncements -- promising billions of dollars in tax breaks and program expansions without naming any specific cuts to offset what is already a shortfall of at least $8 billion.

“He has turned into the most conventional of political people that I’ve seen in a long time,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist who is sitting out the recall campaign. “It is a campaign devoid of taking any risk on issues whatsoever.”

*

Times staff writers Mark Z. Barabak, Dan Morain and Nancy Vogel contributed to this report.