“Does all this mean that Schwarzenegger really is just like Davis?” asks the LA Weekly, which watches the governor closely. “The answer from former staffers, observers and California politicians – even the journalists who once covered his exciting first couple of years going after ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ – is a definite maybe. The real drama of the Schwarzenegger administration has been the spectacle of a big man dubbed the Austrian Oak during his weightlifting years now being cut down to size – a charismatic, visionary figure brought to stasis by a culture of laughably unimpressive politicians. California has a history of big-tent Republican governors, including Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan, who left large footprints. If anybody appeared likely to restore some GOP razzle-dazzle to Sacramento after the frigid terms of George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

But it’s hard for Gulliver to razzle when he’s surrounded by Lilliputians, and it’s hard to dazzle when the subject is budgeting.