Bush, Schwarzenegger Agree to Agree for Now

With broad grins and matching gray suits, President Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger embraced one another physically and politically on Thursday, with the governor-elect putting off a promise to appeal for White House help with California’s economic and budget troubles.

Last week, at a news conference following his election victory, Schwarzenegger had said he wanted to meet with Bush “as quickly as possible because I have a whole bunch of business, California business, to talk to him about and to take care of.”

“We have been paying -- for each dollar that we have been paying on federal taxes, we only have been getting back 77 cents,” he said. “So I want to collect, you know, some of that money.”

The meeting came soon enough: a half-hour private conversation at the Mission Inn in Riverside, nine days after the recall election. But Schwarzenegger steered away from detailed requests for federal help, saying afterward that doing so now might have spoiled a chance to cultivate a crucial political friendship.

“I felt the first meeting would be much more beneficial if we start the meeting by building up a relationship and building up a foundation rather than jumping in there right away and asking about specific things,” Schwarzenegger said at a news conference, where he spoke against the backdrop of an enormous American flag.

The meeting came during a busy post-election period for Schwarzenegger, who said he is working “from morning to night” interviewing candidates for jobs and studying thousands of resumes.

“That is all we do right now,” he said. “Sometimes it goes to midnight.”

Next week Schwarzenegger plans to travel to Sacramento, where he is scheduled to meet with legislative leaders. Gov. Gray Davis said Thursday in an interview that he and Schwarzenegger also plan to meet next week. That meeting is expected to take place Thursday in the Capitol, an administration official said.

While Schwarzenegger hopes that a close relationship with Bush can help with the state’s budget problems, Bush’s aides have made it clear that the president, too, hopes to benefit. Schwarzenegger’s election has given Bush’s advisors hope that the president could seriously contend for California’s electoral votes next year or, at minimum, force the Democratic nominee to spend time and money defending a state that Democrats have been able to count on in the last three presidential elections.

At their meeting, the president and the governor-to-be spent about half their time together in private, without aides in the room. Later they sat together in Bush’s limousine for the drive from Riverside to San Bernardino, where Bush delivered a speech to an Inland Empire economic development group. The trip took only 15 minutes because the freeways had been cleared of traffic for the presidential motorcade.

As he began his speech, Bush joked that he had been “able to reflect upon how much we have in common. We both married well. Some accuse us both of not being able to speak the language.”

“We both have big biceps,” the president continued to laughter from the audience. “Well, two out of three isn’t bad.”

Throughout Bush’s speech -- a defense of his economic policies and efforts to combat terrorism -- Schwarzenegger sat on a chair behind and slightly to the side of the president, clapping intermittently and looking up with his head slightly cocked like an attentive student.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to be a fine and strong leader for California,” Bush said. “I’m proud to call him friend.”

Schwarzenegger has long been a friend of the Bush family. He served as physical fitness advisor to the president’s father, who made a donation to the Schwarzenegger campaign. But Schwarzenegger’s relations have been more distant with the younger Bush than with the former president; until Thursday, the two men had not met in person since Bush became governor of Texas in 1994.

Schwarzenegger had raised expectations for his meeting with Bush through his post-election comments about California’s need for more federal help than it is getting.

But after his meeting with Bush, the governor-elect said he neither asked for nor was given any commitments that more federal money will flow to California once he is installed as governor.

Nonetheless, he said he remained hopeful.

“This problem was not created overnight, and I don’t think we’ll solve it overnight,” he said. “It will take time. It’s important that we form a relationship with the White House, with President Bush, and the White House will be helping us. It was clear during that meeting that they want to help and they will help.”

Asked if the White House can afford to be generous in the face of a federal deficit approaching $500 billion, Schwarzenegger reiterated that, “I am absolutely convinced that we can get help .... The White House was very optimistic about that.”

On a day that seemed as carefully choreographed as a summit between foreign leaders, Schwarzenegger said he accepted no instructions when it came to one question: what to wear.

“It’s natural that if you meet the president of the United States and go to a function like this, you wear a suit and tie,” said Schwarzenegger, who usually avoids ties. “I don’t think that anyone should have to tell you that. Otherwise, under different circumstances, maybe I would be standing here in my leather jacket.”

As for Bush, while his appearance was not billed as a campaign event, he delivered a version of his stump speech that made him sound increasingly like a candidate.

“I came to this office not to mark time,” Bush said, using a line that he has reserved mostly for fund-raisers, not policy speeches. “I came to this office to confront problems directly, and not to pass them off to other presidents and future generations.”

Bush did, however, make a more forceful case for preemptive attacks on terrorist threats, warning that “the terrorists who threaten America cannot be appeased.”

“In this new kind of war, America is following a new strategy. We are not waiting for further attacks. We are striking our enemies before they can strike us again,” Bush said.

He was interrupted frequently with applause. Leaving the hotel after Bush’s address, Art Sampson of Joshua Tree described the speech as “powerful.” Sampson’s 23-year-old son lost his right eye while fighting with the Army in Iraq, and Sampson praised Bush’s handling of the war and its aftermath.

“I feel the job needs to be finished. Otherwise his injury would be in vain,” he said.

Crowds outside of the Bush-Schwarzenegger appearance were mostly quiet. A handful of protesters waved signs and chanted in front of the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, where the speech took place. A brief scuffle broke out between a small group of anti-Bush demonstrators and about five teenage girls who had skipped classes at the Arrowhead Christian Academy in Redlands to show support for the president.

Both sides waved signs and yelled out to people leaving the event. The scuffle began when the girls began to argue with one of the protesters, Anthony Cartegena, of San Bernardino, who was shouting “Impeach Bush! Impeach Bush!”

“Don’t impeach Bush! Keep Bush!” the girls shouted.

Cartegena responded by spraying the girls with water from a plastic bottle. One of the teenagers fired back with a spray of water from her own bottle. At that point Cartegena grabbed a sign away from Allison Schusser, 17, of Redlands and tore it. The sign read, “We Ditched for Bush.”

Cartegena and the teenage girls then began a shoving match that ended when several police officers intervened. Two of the teenage girls were left drenched and sobbing.

“He ruined my sign,” cried Schusser. “It was a cute sign.”

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Times staff writers Hugo Martin and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.