The Reform Action Figure

Up close, Arnold Schwarzenegger seems not quite real, an animatronic version of himself. His skin is waxworks smooth, his hair untroubled by gray, his accent so often imitated that the real thing sounds like someone goofing on Ahhnold. He speaks informally—there is no hortatory political baloney to him—but we are not really having a conversation. The Governor of California has his lines, and he recites them, just as he did onscreen, with a knowing, ironic clumsiness. All of which tends to undercut his current message, which is quite radical. After a year...