Schwarzenegger Sells His Agenda in Malls

The shopping centers offer practical and symbolic advantages to a governor enlisting public support

By Joe Mathews
LA Times Staff Writer

December 8, 2003

TRACY, Calif. - When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left Sacramento last week to take his economic proposals directly to "the people," he sought out the common man not in a church or a park, not in a stadium crowd, a union hall, or even a small town square.

FDR had the fireside. Truman had the back of the train. And when Schwarzenegger needs a place to assert his political legitimacy and replenish his reservoir of public support, California's governor has the shopping mall.

As Schwarzenegger barnstormed the state, he took his proposals for a constitutional spending limit and a deficit bond to communities as different as downtown San Diego and the small Central Valley community of Tracy.

But no matter the town, Schwarzenegger headed straight to the mall.

He gave all three of his major speeches last week with stores in the background and shoppers as his immediate audience.

Since holding the first rally and major speech of his gubernatorial campaign at a Fresno mall, Schwarzenegger has made the shopping center a staple of his public appearances - for reasons that are at once pragmatic, political and personal.

The mall allows the governor to achieve in one place his conflicting political needs for both wide-open publicity and tight-fisted control.

At malls, Schwarzenegger can reaffirm his populist credentials - the state Web site identifies him as "The People's Governor" - by creating TV pictures of himself speaking to large crowds in a public space. At the same time, malls are legally private property, which allows his political team to control the look and feel of events - and keep protesters off camera.

More personally, the mall marries the charismatic character known as Arnold - a marketing machine who himself owns a major Ohio mall - with efforts by Gov. Schwarzenegger - a centrist with few natural political allies - to turn the small business owners who fill mall storefronts into a key political base.

"Everything in a mall is designed to attract and excite people, and that's the same thing Arnold is trying to do," said Michael Blitz, a professor who studies culture at John Jay College in New York and has tracked Schwarzenegger's role in popular culture for 20 years. "When he speaks in a mall, he becomes part of that American fantasy of endless prosperity. In a mall, he is wish fulfillment surrounded by wish fulfillment. It's a very smart strategy.

"It's going to become his trademark."

The tactic is also striking, say marketers and others who study malls, because both politicians and mall operators have traditionally had little to gain from political events in the food court.

The best customers of malls are people who are often so young or apathetic that they don't vote, so politicians typically pick more voter-rich targets.

And mall owners have spent years - and millions of dollars in legal fees - fighting to keep groups or people who want to practice politics out of their stores. Politics, it is thought, can offend customers.

California has been a flash point for such litigation. One landmark case that limits the right to conduct politics in malls was filed in defense of the owners of San Diego's Horton Plaza - where Schwarzenegger spoke Tuesday. Courts have generally sided with owners who wish to limit political activity inside malls.

Lisa Gordon, group vice president for marketing at General Growth Properties, which owns two of the three malls where Schwarzenegger appeared last week, confirmed that Schwarzenegger's office had asked for use of the malls and that her company agreed. But she declined to discuss in detail the company's reasons for hosting Schwarzenegger.

"It's really unusual that a politician would want to use a mall, and that a mall would want to host him," said Jim Farrell, a professor at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and a historian of malls. "But this politician is a celebrity - he attracts crowds for the mall, and part of his political appeal is that he's a consumer product himself.

"What's really fascinating here," Farrell adds, "is that citizenship is more and more defined by consumption. In these events, Arnold is defining citizens as consumers."

Vince Sollitto, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, cautioned against reading too much into the governor's choice of venues. He cited exclusively pragmatic motives. "The governor wants to talk to a lot of people," he said. "And you need a place with a lot of space, a place that people know how to find ... a place that is convenient, safe, easily located."

Part of that safety concern is the ability to control the large crowds that follow Schwarzenegger. Union members and advocates for the disabled, who are protesting Schwarzenegger's budget plans, complain that the malls are restricting protests under cover of keeping the peace.

Controlling Protests

During the governor's Bakersfield speech at the Valley Plaza Mall on Thursday, security guards removed several protesters - including at least three people in wheelchairs - from spots near the stage to an area in the rear of the rally crowd. A bullhorn used by protesters also was taken. Protest organizer Wesley Crawford said he left somewhat mollified by Schwarzenegger's speech, but angry at the mall. "There's no 1st Amendment at Valley Plaza," he bellowed.

"It's pretty smart, isn't it, to have these events on private property?" said Frances Gracechild, director of a group that provides services to the disabled and herself uses a wheelchair. She said she was threatened with arrest for bringing a protest sign to the governor's Friday speech at the West Valley Mall in Tracy.

"It's very smart actually, and it may be legal, but it's not particularly democratic," Gracechild said.

A mall spokeswoman said security guards were merely enforcing a long-standing ban on signs of any kind.

Despite the occasional battles with protesters, Schwarzenegger's team continues to find malls useful for their symbolic value. The governor's campaign and proposals have been focused on bringing back California business, and malls offer the possibility of reaching many businesses in one place.

And if last week was any measure, mall employees are delighted by Schwarzenegger's presence. At the food court in Bakersfield, women selling cheese steaks from under a heat lamp blew kisses to him, and the Dairy Queen manager complained good-naturedly that he was left to sell hot dogs alone because his employees disappeared to seek the governor's autograph.

The malls in San Diego and Tracy both contain movie theaters where Schwarzenegger's films have long appeared. In Tracy, it was a walk of just 30 feet from the stage where the governor spoke to a video store that had on sale a dozen of his movies. Nearby, the Barnes & Noble bookstore had devoted an entire display table to books and magazines by and about Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver.

In some ways, Schwarzenegger's mall appearances - which are announced over loudspeakers with long soundtracks of pop and rock hits from the '70s and '80s - show the governor is slightly dated. There is not a hint of hip-hop music in a Schwarzenegger appearance, and he seems to prefer more traditional malls, largely avoiding appearances at stores such as Wal-Mart that in the last decade have come to dominate American retailing.

There may be a political reason for that. The big retailers are natural enemies of the small businesses Schwarzenegger is trying to court. Last week's rallies were formally sponsored by the Small Business Action Committee, a new group headed by former Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. president Joel Fox. Fox appeared on stage with Schwarzenegger and three small-business owners at every stop the governor made.

In a brief interview, Fox said the committee was organizing small business owners into a political force that could fight for and against ballot measures that affect them.

Working Together

Fox said he was in close touch with Schwarzenegger's political strategists, and the committee planned to work closely with the governor in getting workers' compensation reform passed by voters next year.

In a similar way, Schwarzenegger's use of the mall reinforces his stated political strategy of going over the heads of legislators and the mainstream press, communicating directly with the public, and achieving much of his agenda through initiatives and referenda.

Schwarzenegger also seems to have a personal comfort with malls. He is a clothes-horse and the rare American male to publicly confess he likes to shop. His favorite hangout, Cafe Roma (where he smokes cigars and plays chess on the patio), is part of a small mall in Beverly Hills. And Schwarzenegger the businessman is deeply familiar with malls. He is a partner with the retailing giant the Limited and developer Georgetown Co. in the Easton Town Center, a mall in Columbus, Ohio.

"In many ways, he's the ultimate suburban symbol, and the mall is also a suburban symbol," said Don Mitchell, a geography professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs who has studied malls.

"And there's not much difference anymore between shopping for politicians and shopping for a sweater."