For Governor, a Spot Out of the Spotlight

The battleground was a foosball table in the plush Four Seasons Resort on the island of Maui. The combatants: a dozen squealing boys and -- standing a foot-and-a-half taller -- the governor of California.

They were crowded around the table, Arnold Schwarzenegger in command of the swiveling plastic men defending his goal; 6-year-old son Christopher at his side. A pair of California Highway Patrol officers watched from a discreet distance, shooing away a guest who tried to take a picture against hotel policy.

Schwarzenegger hunched over the game in a gray T-shirt, shorts and bare feet, fiercely snapping the metal rods manipulating the tiny players until a loud “thunk” signaled a goal. Game over.

On to the shuffleboard table, where a tentative effort by the governor prompted 10-year-old son Patrick to kibitz: “Too soft, Dad.”

So went the governor’s weeklong spring break: swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Helping a swimmer in distress. Flag-football games on the lawn led by his wife, Maria Shriver (the governor sat those out). Periodic phone calls to the Capitol to check the progress of negotiations on reforming the state’s $20-billion workers’ compensation insurance system. A shopping trip to a nearby mall. Morning workouts.

There are precious few spots on the globe where Schwarzenegger, Shriver and their four children can be assured of any privacy. But in this self-contained compound of beachfront luxury, where the top suite goes for $8,700 a night and the spa offers 10 kinds of facials, the governor has at least a sporting chance.

Celebrities and TV personalities are regulars. Oprah, Katie Couric and Ozzy Osbourne have eaten at the Spago restaurant here. Britney Spears has lounged in the hotel pool, home to a big fountain.

Pat O’Brien, anchor of the TV show “Access Hollywood,” ordered a cranberry juice and soda at a hotel bar Tuesday night and explained it this way: “People don’t really bother other people here.”

O’Brien said he was a friend of the governor and that the two tried to stay at the hotel at the same time. They scheduled a round of golf together Friday.

“Any time the ball goes forward, we’re very happy,” he said.

With no aides present, no meetings to attend, the first couple were frequent companions: They were spotted walking through Spago together, arm in arm. They came back from the beach together one afternoon, the governor carrying a paperback; Shriver, a sheaf of papers.

After dinner Monday night, they shared a table in the hotel lobby. The governor smoked a cigar, a snifter in front of him as they huddled in conversation.

On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger was swimming out to meet Shriver in the ocean when he went to help a swimmer, an incident that prompted a flurry of media calls to the hotel.

Early news accounts portrayed the episode as a life-saving rescue, though the Schwarzenegger family later downgraded it to an “assist.”

Celebrity journalist O’Brien, sitting on a lounge chair by the pool Friday morning, savored the story. “You can’t make this stuff up. You can take the action hero out of the movies, but not out of politics.”

Schwarzenegger seemed unfazed by the drama.

Friday found him and about 15 others soaking in the hotel hot tub, talking to O’Brien and another guest, while Shriver and the children sat in nearby lounge chairs.

In an interview earlier in the week, the governor talked about himself and his wife.

“I grew up differently than she did,” said Schwarzenegger, who was raised in Austria. “For me, conversations were very narrow. Only four people in the family. Everything was tied down. Most of the time, we weren’t allowed to talk in the first place at our dinner table.

“Where with Maria,” he said, “you go there with her family, everyone talks and screams. It’s a different environment. Maria grew up talking to 150 people about any subject. They talk and talk.

“I’m not into that,” the governor said. “It’s, like, have a conversation. Get information. Make up my mind. Finished. Talk is over.

“They have a totally different way of processing,” he said. “But it’s good. I’m extreme in one way; Maria, extreme in another. So it’s really good.”

He added: “Maria is a little bit different than most women.”

Shriver, looking on, smiled and said: “Really?”

For one outing they parted company.

Schwarzenegger was on his own for much of a shopping expedition Wednesday to the upscale Shops at Wailea near the hotel.

With three CHP officers standing guard, the governor ducked into Gucci but spent a good half hour at the more downscale Banana Republic, where he purchased a couple of polo shirts, a white fitted T-shirt, a black belt, khaki shorts, dress pants and socks. He wore some of it out the door.

A family visiting from Maryland waited for 15 minutes outside the store to say hello. Living out of state, they can’t vote for Schwarzenegger, but Jay Goldberg, the husband and father, said it made no difference. “We vote every time we see his movies -- with our tickets,” he said.

Now, 2,385 miles west of Sacramento, Schwarzenegger outlined what he sees as the deeper purpose of his administration. For the first time, he said, Californians who had been apathetic toward politics were attentive to Sacramento. He said he would like what he was doing to be a model for other states -- not willing to concede that it might take a personality as large as his to capture voter interest.

“We’ll find out,” he said.

He said he was speaking from experience. “I look for special, strange [TV] channels that cover things like the L.A. Unified School District. I will be watching, because it’s funny to see the little complications and how complicated everything really is.

“But most people don’t watch that,” he added. “So they’re not aware of what’s going on. So now they’re aware of what’s going on, and because of that, when you say, ‘I need your help,’ you bring them in and you make them as important as you are. Because you say, ‘Hey, you have the power. Let’s all make the decision together.’ It shouldn’t be just me there sitting. I need you too.”

The governor returns to that task this weekend as the family wraps up its holiday and heads home. What the trip is costing the state is not yet publicly known. A handful of CHP officers are with the governor. Even the lower-priced rooms at the resort go for $345 a night.

Citing a long-standing policy when it comes to the governor’s security arrangements, the CHP declined to comment on how much the trip was costing taxpayers. Margita Thompson, the governor’s press secretary, said in Sacramento that such details would only be revealed through a formal public-records request.

At least one lingering question was cleared up during this vacation, kind of.

Doug Peterson, who runs a salon at the hotel and said he had cut Schwarzenegger’s hair, was asked if it is its natural color.

Eyes twinkling, Peterson raised his right hand. “Absolutely. I would stake my life on it,” he said.