Word: arnolds
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Arnold's contradictions--if that's what they are--are an outgrowth of his two formative experiences: an iron-heel upbringing in Austria followed by all the lubrications of sun and fun and wealth that we still call California. He was born in the Austrian village of Thal, near Graz, in 1947, in the struggling years right after World War II. His mother was a homemaker. His father was a policeman and an avid performer of military music, which may help explain why Schwarzenegger sometimes reminds you of a one-man oompah band...
...most significantly perhaps, the elder Schwarzenegger was a Nazi. Wendy Leigh, a British free-lancer who published an unauthorized biography of Schwarzenegger in 1990, discovered that Arnold's father had joined the party on July 4, 1938, just months after the Anschluss, Germany's annexation of Austria. Regardless of whether that was a step Arnold's father took gladly, in America we don't visit the sins of the father onto the children. All the same, Arnold did not always take care to avoid those associations himself. One of the guests he invited to his 1986 wedding to Shriver...
...event, as with many kids, home was a place that Arnold was looking to escape. When his father died while Arnold was living in the U.S., he did not return for the funeral. He has said variously that he was too deep into his training or that he was hospitalized. He had long since made his escape from home by way of bodybuilding. At 19 he went AWOL from his Austrian army base to enter a competition that he won. At 20 he won the first of five Mr. Universe titles, the hypertrophies of the sport. By that time, Schwarzenegger...
...Arnold, what the heck are you doing? You're getting out of Hollywood to go into politics? Well, then forget agents and studio bosses--now you're dealing with real predators. But since your mind is made up, I hope you won't mind a little advice from someone who's been there...
...yourself. Be Arnold. Be the guy who can sit and have a cigar with the crew. Be honest. Don't worry if you don't know the answer to every question asked. Just say, "I don't know," if you don't know. When I did this during my campaign in Minnesota, people were amazed. How revolutionary--a politician who stands in front of the people and doesn't feed them pre-canned answers...