The uniqueness of Arnold Schwarzenegger's governorship was underscored anew last week as he completed a whirlwind series of agreements with major "stakeholders" in the state budget and unveiled a much-revised spending plan.

No other governor had ever approached the budgetary game with such gusto, or bypassed the Legislature to make multibillion-dollar side deals with interest groups. And perhaps no other governor could have done either, because none had the celebrity, the popularity or the independence that he enjoys and employs.

That said, one does find threads of other recent governorships in Schwarzenegger's still-new reign. He is, in a sense, a blend of certain qualities found in his predecessors, overlaid with his own singular persona and status as a global celebrity.

The most obvious analogy would be to Ronald Reagan, another actor who challenged and defeated an unpopular Democratic incumbent during a time of cultural upheaval. Schwarzenegger's public charisma, private charm and upbeat, nothing-is-impossible demeanor are very Reaganesque. And, like Reagan, Schwarzenegger was underestimated by the professional politicians.

There is, however, something of Reagan's successor, Jerry Brown, in Schwarzenegger's governorship, too. Brown, just 36 years old when elected in 1974, was a glamorous figure in his day - a bachelor who counted rock singer Linda Ronstadt among his girlfriends. More to the point, however, Brown had a very loose, unpredictable approach to governing (which drove his chief of staff - a buttoned-down politician named Gray Davis - nuts), and brought a disparate cast of characters, many of them from outside activist groups, into his administration.

Finding parallels between Schwarzenegger and Brown's Republican successor, George Deukmejian, is more difficult. One, perhaps, would be a family perspective. Deukmejian and Schwarzenegger are the only two post-Reagan governors who actually had children and thus brought their experiences as parents to the Governor's Office. It's been a little odd that the two governors who immediately preceded Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis and Pete Wilson, positioned themselves as education advocates and reformers without having ever reared children who went through school.

That aside, Schwarzenegger's governorship most closely resembles Wilson's 1991-99 tenure, and with good reason. Wilson has been a Schwarzenegger mentor, the nucleus of Wilson's political team advised Schwarzenegger, and many of the new governor's top aides are Wilson alumni.

More significantly, many items on Schwarzenegger's agenda appear to be updated versions of what Wilson wanted to do, only to find himself forced to become a crisis manager as the state experienced a relentless series of natural and human-caused disasters ranging from the worst recession in a half-century to race riots.

Wilson aspired to be a Tory reformer in the Earl Warren mold, a moderate Republican who would restructure government along more logical, result-oriented lines. He talked about bringing the principles of "managed growth" he practiced as mayor of San Diego to the state to help cope with massive population expansion, and about shifting the emphasis of state agencies to "preventive government" that would deal with social problems before they became crises. But he became bogged down in crisis management, a lot he accepted stoically, if unenthusiastically.

Schwarzenegger's bipartisan cadre of advisers is working on similarly activist, reformist proposals that range from reorganizing state agencies to "smart growth" housing policies, overhauling energy regulation and bridging political gaps on water policy - all to be rolled out once the budget crisis has been tamed. Schwarzenegger's frequent calls for improving the state's business climate are a direct throwback to the description of California as a "job-killing machine" by a Wilson-appointed commission.

The obvious question, of course, is whether one could find even a tiny connection between Schwarzenegger and Davis, the man he replaced after a historic recall election last year. Just one comes to mind: Both men have vivacious and activist wives who are political assets.