Q: The campaign was so fast and so strange that it's like you never actually were asked to define your ideology, your political ideology. What is your sense, from your experience and your instincts, about the proper role of government to play in society?

A: I think in general I would say that government's role is to assist people, and not to be an obstacle. And, you know, there's a fine line, as there is with everything. I think that if you have a government that feels like they should be involved in every step of your way, like it was under socialism in Austria, or in general under socialism, then you become kind of an obstacle for moving people, inspiring people to move ahead. You maybe take care of a certain segment of society, but in general you don't really support the whole state, or the whole nation, to move forward.

So, what I'm trying to do is - and what I always saw was - there is a middle ground between what Austria did and what, for instance, a very conservative government would do. Where they say, you know, limit it down to the minimum of the government.

[about his idol, Milton Friedman]

And you know, you don't have to - when you have someone as an inspiration, that doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything that the person does...

[...]

The balance is the key thing. For me, everything is about the fine line, finding the fine line, because in everything there is a fine line where you go a little bit to the right, you fall, and it's like being on that balancing beam. You go a little bit to the right, you fall; you go a little bit to the left, you fall. So, finding the fine line - it's the same with negotiating a workers' comp deal, it's negotiating the budget. What is that fine line, and what is reasonable? And so, to me, government can be a great, great asset. But it also can be a huge obstacle if you don't find that fine line.

I know Arnold and I disagree, or would disagree, about many specifics, of course, and I'm less inclined to assume that government must automatically or always be the problem, but I also perfectly agree that, of course, many times it can be, and that it certainly is not automatically or always the answer, either.

In other words, I can more or less sign on with most of what Arnold said there, in principle, at least.

Because he's talking like, and so far acting more or less like, a conservative/libertarian pragmatic moderate, not some knee-jerk ideologue to whom principle is more important than results. And many would say that as a criticism, but I won't.

Can you imagine George Bush saying the following?

Well, that's why I'm not an ideologue, you know? Because ideology and political philosophy, many times, you know, falls apart in front of your very eyes when you go out there into the real world and you start working, for instance, in the cities, and you provide after-school programs. And when you go in there first, and you say, "Well, wait a minute. Every kid should go out and sit down and do their homework, and go and do sports. That's what I did as a kid," and all this.

But when I got in there, I realized that if you don't have someone there that motivates you, someone there that mentors you, like I had, or I had parents there that continuously stayed on top of the situation, and made me do my homework, or coached me in soccer, and took me skiing and all that.

So, if you don't have that, and the parents are working, or there's only one parent and that parent is working, so there's no one there for the kids. So, I felt that we have to provide some service there for the kids to kind of fill that vacuum.

Otherwise, what you get into is, is to see the children go off and get involved with gangs, and with drugs, and with all the things that get them into serious trouble.

So, I said to myself, "Wait a minute, but this is not my philosophy. I always said that families should take care of their children, you know? The mothers and the fathers should do that." And as I saw the complexity and the problems in real life, or with Special Olympics, or with the President's Council on Fitness, I saw that some of the stuff that I was thinking of originally - I mean, I was more conservative. I felt like that when you deal with reality, it's different.

So, that's why it is very important to not get stuck with certain principles, but to be able to be flexible, so that maybe when you make decisions that someone will think, "Well, this was kind of an idea that maybe a Democrat would actually endorse and promote. Where does he come from with this idea?" But then on another day you come up with something, and someone says, "Oh, man, the right-wing Republicans, they will be really happy with that decision." So, it's a mixture of things, and so it's based on what is going on in the real world, the way I see it, rather than reading someone's book and sticking to that, and saying, "This is the Bible, and I will never change from that point of view." So, that's what I have learned. And when you learn that, you become more tolerant about the various different issues and situations, and you kind of back off from your original stand.

And the key thing is to be able to back off, and to just say, you know, I was wrong on that, the way I thought. I don't care - I'd rather say that I'm wrong and correct myself than get stuck with that, and then make mistakes. So, that's it, basically.

This may be one element in why the Governator and the Bush forces are reportedly keeping their distance (also, reportedly Arnold and Karl Rove don't get along).

I have to say that for a guy who still grapples with the English language -- occasionally losing -- he can be remarkably articulate.

Read The Rest Scale: 3 out of 5 as interested; there's a bunch more there.