NYT Magazine Mario Cuomo Interview: Recall Ballad

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Q As someone who served three terms as a governor, you must have some thoughts about what's happening in California.

It's too much democracy. In San Francisco and in the rest of California, there has been an instinct for a long time to get as close to the plebiscite as you can get, as close to ''We'll decide it for ourselves.'' And I think Californians would tell you that every once in a while they've done something they're proud of this way, but more often than not they've discovered that they punished themselves by a rash judgment.

That you could recall an executive is an odd and maybe scary concept.

Well, depending on how the executive feels about it when he's banished. The situation in California seems to be so bad that I'm not sure Gray Davis isn't secretly praying for banishment.

Is the idea of governor as a serious job, one that requires a lot of experience, changing? We had Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, and now perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger in California.

Well, let's see. Minnesota, maybe, California, not so sure. California is an unusual and electric kind of state -- it's wonderful. All sorts of things happen there. But a little too dazzling for my taste -- when you threaten legislators with large weapons.

Do you know Schwarzenegger?

I've met him. He seems a very nice man, frankly -- certainly intelligent, and active and admirable in many ways. He's an immigrant, which gives him a big edge with me, to be honest. My parents were immigrants. He built himself into a beautiful body, and a winner, and then into an actor. And so he's a man that I admire. I have great reservations about him as a governor, however, especially given the unusual circumstances. And the notion that, as he says, you don't really need experience -- why say that? Well, because you're surrounded by Pete Wilson, and other people with experience. Well, if you don't need experience, why are you surrounded by people with experience? Why don't you get a whole lot of people who are intelligent people like you and can still lift weights?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/magazine/31QUESTIONS.html