The Capitol's endemic alienation from California's ever-changing social and economic landscape has many causal roots -- but one of the more important is to be found in the numerology of ideology.

Four months ago, the Field Institute, the state's best-known public polling organization, underscored what it and other pollsters had reported in the past: California's voters are a fairly moderate lot. Field found that just 25 percent of the state's voters describe themselves as liberals, and another 32 percent are self-designated conservatives, while 43 percent consider themselves to be moderates.

There has been no such objective survey of the 120 state legislators, but a reasonable estimate would be that roughly 90 percent could be classified as liberals or conservatives -- and the ranks of the ideological true believers have been growing, while those of moderates have been shrinking.
In large measure, that's due to the effects of a bipartisan gerrymander of the Legislature two years ago. By designating the partisan ownership of every legislative district, the remapping scheme effectively made party primaries the only elections that count and thus made both parties' ideological purists dominant.

There has been, therefore, a widening gulf between a largely middle-of-the-road electorate, which simply wants its state government to work effectively and efficiently, and a Legislature mired in ideological trench warfare.

That disconnect reached its zenith in 2003. While the Legislature's dominant liberal majority shoved through the system dozens of measures on the agendas of liberal interest groups, a polarized Capitol deadlocked for the third straight year on dealing with the state's deficit-saturated budget.

The essentially centrist bent of California voters had been embodied in its election and re-election, albeit narrowly, of Gray Davis to the governorship on his pledge to steer clear of the ideological jihad and govern in the larger public interest. But Davis' centrism proved to be of a particularly passive variety, one devoid of leadership or any vision beyond his own survival.

Ironically, the more Davis tried to shun responsibility for the budget and other issues, the more he tried to play one interest group off against another, the more his public standing declined. Californians may have wanted a moderate governor, but they also wanted one who would govern, not shirk his duty.

The great story of 2003 is how Californians became disgusted with the dysfunctional status quo and traded in a self-proclaimed Democratic centrist for a self-proclaimed Republican centrist -- rejecting Davis on his character flaws and electing actor Arnold Schwarzenegger on his promise to bring adult supervision to the Capitol.

The great story of 2004 will be whether Schwarzenegger, a newcomer to the Byzantine world of Capitol politics, can become the governor that Californians want, someone who will face the state's issues squarely and do what's necessary to resolve them.

Given his own status as a global entertainment figure and the rather bizarre circumstances of his election, 2004 will make political history no matter how it turns out. And it begins this week as Schwarzenegger delivers his first State of the State address to the Legislature and unveils his approach to a 2004-05 budget that's already awash in red ink.

The first six weeks of the Schwarzenegger governorship have provided some clues to his governance style. He's certainly engaged to a degree we never saw in Davis and much less predictable, employing the psychological tactics he used in his careers as a bodybuilder and action movie star and in countless chess games. He schmoozes and puffs on cigars with lawmakers one day, and goes on talk radio to criticize them the next.

Watching this celebrity governor befuddle professional politicians is entertaining, but ultimately he will have to make -- and stick with -- some very tough and perhaps unpopular decisions, especially on the budget, if he's to succeed.

With his celebrity, popularity and independence, Schwarzenegger has the opportunity to break new ground, as he did in his past careers. He's made a fairly good, although not flawless, start, but the hardest part still lies ahead.