[jef_leppard]

I grew up in the 80s and it’s hard to overstate how dominant Arnold was back then. Every little boy wanted to be Commando or Conan.

I also remember when he was governor (I live in cali). Those years I remember less fondly. He was not very good imo but it’s impressive nonetheless that he achieved that milestone.

Once in a lifetime phenomenon. I’m really enjoying this new more thoughtful and reflective era he’s having.

EDIT: moved some words around for clarity.

[appleiigs]

My recollection was that he was a good governor but tied up with political red tape. Also, compare him to other California governors since then and he doesn’t seem so bad.

[SoftTalker]

I don't live there, but my perception was that he was a Republican so hated by the left, but he was a fairly moderate Republican, so not liked all that well by the right either. This left him without many powerful allies on either side.

[RickJWagner]

When he was governor, California was not so solidly blue. He was more popular than you might guess today.

[hackernewds]

you think he has been better than Newsome?

[maxverse]

One of the things I love about his autobiography is that he talks with the same sense of wonder about the people he wanted to be growing up, and reflects on meeting his heroes. In one of my favorite passages in the book, he talks about growing up on on Joe Weider's bodybuilding magazines:

> “Other pictures in the magazine showed scientists and technicians in white lab coats developing nutritional supplements in the Weider Research Clinic. “Weider Research Clinic,” I would say to myself, “this is unbelievable!” And there were pictures of airplanes with “Weider” painted on the side in big letters. I’d imagined an outfit the size of General Motors, with a fleet of planes flying around the globe delivering Weider equipment and food supplements. The writing in the magazine sounded fabulous too when my friends translated it for me. The stories talked about “blasting the muscles” and building “deltoids like cannonballs” and “a chest like a fortress.”

> And now here I was, six years later, on Venice Beach! Just like Dave Draper, only now it was me with the dune buggy and the surfboard and the adoring girls. Of course, by this time I was aware enough to see that Weider was creating a whole fantasy world, with a foundation in reality but skyscrapers of hype. Yes, there were surfboards, but the bodybuilders didn’t really surf. Yes, there were pretty girls, but they were models who got paid for the photo session. (Actually, one of the girls was Joe’s wife, Betty, a beautiful model whom he didn’t have to pay.) Yes, there were Weider supplements and, yes, some research took place, but there was no big building in Los Angeles called the Weider Research Clinic. Yes, Weider products were distributed around the world, but there were no Weider planes. Discovering the hype didn’t bother me, though. Enough of it was true.”

[metabagel]

Schwarzenegger was a perfectly fine governor of California. He actually created a mobile pandemic response capability for the state (instant hospital beds), but it was dismantled before the pandemic happened. Would have been handy when hospital beds became scarce.

[metabagel]

As I recall, the capability which was created included a lot of spare ventilators, which again would have been super handy.