By Yusuke Yamada
Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected as the Governor-elect in California. In Japan he is known as one of the most famous Hollywood actors. Now he is said to earn more than \2 billion per movie. By the way, he was born in Graz, Austria in 1947. Austria is as large as Hokkaido. It has an old history, a tradition of classical music and vast natural� surroundings. The People of Austria are mostly catholic, and he was raised in a strict catholic home.
Before he became a bodybuilder－his starting point towards fameーhe played many different sports such as skiing, swimming, javelin throwing, running and soccer, because he was frail in his childhood. But later, when he saw a movie about Hercules, he admired him and decided to be a bodybuilder. When he was fourteen years old, he met Kurt Marnul, the bodybuilder and former Mr. Austria. Marnul inspired Arnold and he began to train his body at Marnul's gym. When he was eighteen years old, he finished secondary education and then he enlisted in the Austrian Army while continuing his training. While he was in the Army he won a bodybuilding competition and was awarded the title of Junior Mr. Europe.
He was discharged from military service at the age of nineteen and went Munich to open his own gym. When he was twenty years old, he won the title of Mr. Germany. He placed second at the Mr. Universe Contest in London. Next year he became the youngest champion ever in the Mr. Universe contest. Until his retirement at age twenty-eight in 1975, he won Mr. Universe five times, Mr. Olympia six times, and Mr. World once and two other contests. By winning 14 world titles, he achieved something that nobody had done before.
Later, he took on Hollywood and he starred in a lot of big hit movies such as the "Terminator" series, "Eraser," "True Lies," "End Of Days," and so on. Besides acting, he went to university and studied English. In the university he majored in Psychology, Management and International Economics. Moreover, he earned degrees in Management and International Economics. Also he learned aviation, real estate, and fitness, so he acquired some grounding as a businessman. Japanese might not know his other activities. One example of this is that he had served as an official in the Special Olympics, the International Olympics for physically and mentally challenged people, for twenty years. From 1990 to 1993 he was appointed Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under the George Bush Administration.
He ran for the Governor of California on the basis of his experiences. In this election he faced many difficulties. One of them was his lack of political experience. Until the election, his image was mainly of a powerful, muscular movie actor, but not an intellectual. Naturally, most of Americas were worried. The Second of his difficulties was that so many candidates ran. Though he had a sexual harassment problem, he frankly apologized for it and that seemed to settled it. He was a member of the Republican Party and opposed to Governor Davis of the Democratic Party. Though Arnold's wife, Maria Shriver, is from the Kennedy family which has supported the Democratic Party for generations, she did all she could for him, which was certainly important.
Under these circumstances, Arnold Schwarzenegger defeated the deputy governor, Cruz Bustamante, and won the election on October 8th. He is the second Hollywood actor to be Governor of California after former President Ronald Reagan. It was exactly the moment another American Dream of his was achieved. Since he is not a natural born American, but an Austrian immigrant, he is a minority, so to speak. Americans with an expectation for him might support him as a minority and an immigrant. Now it depends on Arnold whether he can live up to their expectations of him. It is certain that the determining factor in his victory was his well-known character and enormous funding. But he hasn't announce his concrete policy as of yet, so Americans are expecting him to make his politics clear and to show his ability.
The State of California has a lot of problems such as a deficit of $38 billion, an electricity crisis where electricity often fails, educational problems and the recent damage caused by terrible forest fires. From now on Arnold will stop acting in films as long as he is Governor in order to be able to devote himself to the new job. Though he obviously lacks experience as a politician, Californians and a lot of his fans hope that his life experiences and muscular power will help him.