Actor’s Team Sprints, but Can It Finish a Marathon?

For weeks, Arnold Schwarzenegger has run a lavish campaign -- more like a bid for president than a run for California governor.

A private jet ferries him to events, and personal bodyguards shadow his every step, Secret Service-like. A small army of handsomely paid aides fills his Santa Monica headquarters --others spill into a second building -- and TV ads air virtually round-the-clock, alone costing the campaign roughly $2 million a week.

The expensive trappings have given Schwarzenegger, a first-time candidate, a political stature that even his Hollywood celebrity fails to confer. His team includes some of the best talent the Republican Party has to offer. He draws from issue advisors, such as investor Warren E. Buffett, who are the cream of their professions.

But Schwarzenegger’s free-spending ways carry a cost, and not just the millions the actor is shelling out each week.

In interviews, campaign aides and others familiar with the Schwarzenegger operation who spoke on condition that they not be identified described a bureaucratic organization, riven with disputes and slow to make strategic decisions.

Aides have long predicted a certain amount of tension would occur, given the sudden start of Schwarzenegger’s candidacy and the candidate’s desire to include nonpolitical advisors in the campaign.

“It’s natural that there would be a process ... to bringing together all the facets of the world of Arnold,” Jill Eisenstadt, the actor’s Hollywood publicist and part of his campaign effort, said in a recent interview.

The problems may be manageable in a short campaign -- such as the snap election anticipated when the recall vote was set for Oct. 7. But many Republicans invested in Schwarzenegger’s success have begun fretting over how the candidate might fare if court decisions stretch the race all the way to March.

Even someone with Schwarzenegger’s enormous wealth could have a difficult time sustaining the current rate of spending. The budget for his campaign, planned for an Oct. 7 election, is $22 million, or nearly $3 million a week for an eight-week contest.

“Part of me thinks if it were pushed back to March, it might actually do the campaign a favor by allowing them to organize themselves in a more effective manner,” said one Republican operative familiar with the campaign’s inner workings. “They threw this thing together so quickly, and really they have too many people not doing enough. It’s just a giant layer of bureaucracy on top of a layer of bureaucracy, which is not how a campaign should operate.”

Several key aides, who signed up with Schwarzenegger assuming a short stint, have privately indicated their plans to move on should the race continue for several more months.

Most successful campaigns have a small core of top strategists, who typically have gone back a number of years with the candidate and are responsible for quickly making important decisions during a race. In the Schwarzenegger camp, however, various factions have vied for favor with the candidate and his chief advisor, wife Maria Shriver, according to inside accounts.

“The campaign is very slow moving,” said a Sacramento strategist. “They put out word that certain actions will happen: They’ll put out different plans, hold specific press conferences, and they don’t happen.”

But a spokesman insisted that the campaign has achieved miracles, given its rapid start-up and the pressures since.

“We’re pretty satisfied that we’re a modern marvel,” said press secretary Rob Stutzman. “There are demands on this campaign that no other campaign in this state has ever had to deal with. The press interest is presidential level. The logistics of travel and public events are presidential level because of the size crowds the candidate draws.

“And yet in the past 40 days, he’s emerged as the front-runner, poised to take the governor’s chair within the next few weeks,” Stutzman said.

Despite some missteps, Schwarzenegger continues to lead his top Republican rival, state Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousands Oaks, in opinion polls. He remains competitive, as well, with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the top Democrat in the contest to replace Gov. Gray Davis, if he is ousted from office.

Friends see the best of Schwarzenegger reflected in his campaign’s disparate collection of advisors in assorted camps.

“He really is about six different personalities, and he’s loyal to those six different constituencies,” said Augie Nieto, a longtime friend who originated the LifeCycle exercise bike that Schwarzenegger often mentions on the campaign trail.

“He has always tried to create a synergy between all those parts of him -- he puts bodybuilders in his movies, he gets the business people he works with to contribute to his charities,” Nieto said. “He knows a lot of people and he will ask them for help.”

In fact, Schwarzenegger’s campaign represents an amalgam from assorted parts of his life. Adding to his Hollywood team, his wife brings her own circle of advisors, including friends and Democratic family members.

Figures from Schwarzenegger’s charitable life -- including Hollenbeck Youth Center director Danny Hernandez and Bonnie Reiss, a longtime friend who once ran his charitable foundation -- have important roles in the campaign.

Schwarzenegger’s political professionals also come from different camps. A core of advisors are veterans of former Gov. Pete Wilson’s campaigns. They include campaign co-managers Bob White and Marty Wilson, strategist George Gorton, ad man Don Sipple and spokesman Sean Walsh.

A newer group, headed by strategist Mike Murphy and spokesman Todd Harris, worked on the 2000 presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Although Murphy is a friend of Sipple, he was brought into the campaign at the behest of Shriver, who felt some Wilson veterans were placing loyalty to their old boss ahead of Schwarzenegger’s interests, sources say. The former governor, who remains a polarizing figure -- particularly in the Latino community -- was prominently featured in the days after Schwarzenegger first entered the race. He has largely disappeared since.

“She felt the people who made that decision to put him out there were doing it more to get Pete Wilson out than to help Arnold,” said a third Republican strategist familiar with the internal dynamic of the campaign.

Another central tension has been the insistence by Schwarzenegger -- with the strong backing of his wife -- that he limit negative attacks on rivals. There has been grumbling as well about Shriver’s suggestions that Schwarzenegger borrow from the Kennedy family playbook and campaign more in low-income settings.

“All of that doesn’t matter,” Sipple said recently of efforts to push Schwarzenegger to do more negative campaigning. “The candidate has made it clear that he won’t do that.”

Shriver is described by others at the strategy table as the candidate’s single most important campaign advisor. She declined Thursday to be interviewed for this article.

Although Shriver’s advice is free, others in the campaign are being richly compensated. A handful of top strategists stand to make more than $250,000 each for roughly two months of work. A platoon of press aides, fund-raisers, researchers and policy advisors are all making substantial salaries.

Of the $22 million Schwarzenegger budgeted for his campaign, nearly two-thirds is dedicated to advertising.

The rest has been allotted for salaries and other expenses. Although that is a considerable amount of money, a March election might result in some staff winnowing.

Harris, for one, will be available only through October, when he plans to return to Florida and his job advising Gov. Jeb Bush. Others, including Murphy, would likely divide their time.

Some have privately indicated their plans to leave the campaign if it continues much past Oct. 7. Said one campaign aide, speaking Thursday from Schwarzenegger headquarters. “You can’t afford to keep going on like this for the next five months.”

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Times staff writer Jeffrey Rabin contributed to this report