Why I Respect Schwarzenegger More Than I Did Yesterday

If an average male has to choose between movie actor and political career, most would opt for the former. Most of those who are rational, that is.

If you are movie actor, you can reach the top of your career early on, in your teens or 20ies, and remain there for decades. If you happen to be career politician, your can remain on top (White House) not more than eight years.

If you are movie actor, you can earn millions of dollars and remain on top regardless of your movies turning into flops. If you stumble in politics once, you can hardly reach top again.

If you are movie actor, you can be worshipped by billions of people all over the world. If you are career politician in America, at least 30 % of people would hate your guts because of your party affiliation.

If you are movie actor, your security problems consist paparazzi and handful of psychotic individuals. If you are career politicians, you must think about thousands, if not millions of people, willing to blow you away simply to make some obscure political point.

If you are movie actor, you are expected to drink yourself silly, change girlfriends like you change socks, go into fisfights, spend months in rehab, abuse your spouses/SOs, shoot guns in night clubs etc. – all that with media treating all those incidents as normal part of celebrity lifestyle. If you are career politician, each and every piece of dirt from your past becomes national issue.

Schwarzenegger knew all this when he got into the recall race. If he chose to remain nothing more than a movie actor, all those groping and Nazi allegations would have remained footnotes in third-rate tabloids. He could have maintained successful and secure career of a Hollywood entertainer. But he chose to sacrifice all that for something he believed in.

Regardless of the accusations, and regardless what he does when he goes to Sacramento, he has might utmost respect.