Nobody ever said you needed a speech to be a Distinguished Speaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't have one on Thursday night, and he did just fine.
A receptive audience that nearly filled the capacity of Alumni Arena greeted the former governor of California, who, improvising from the heart, explained the importance of hard work, public service, and chasing goals, as he balanced serious topics with light humor.
The evening started with a video, put together by UB, that depicted students, cheerleaders, and the school's head football coach, Jeff Quinn, doing their best "I'll be back" impersonations. Once Schwarzenegger took the stage, he quickly joked about the interesting accents within our school's community, acknowledging his signature, but sometimes-hard-to-understand, voice.
In fact, later in his speech, he graciously admitted that his accent was both a blessing and a curse when he started getting into the movie business. He recalled being told by an agent that he would never make it in Hollywood because his muscles were too big, his words too hard to understand, and his last name – "Schwarzen-Schnitzel" – too difficult to pronounce.
But the fear of failure never stopped the 38th governor of California from pursuing his goals. If it did, he would have been a "girly man," and those in attendance Thursday night know just how undesirable of a title that is; girly men are afraid of failing and refuse to take risks, which is how he once described Californian legislators.
The main theme of the night was setting goals and pursuing them. Schwarzenegger even explained the easy steps to success: "Come to America, work hard, and marry a Kennedy."
Jokes aside, it was evident that part of his recipe for success was no laughing matter. The former bodybuilder learned valuable lessons such as camaraderie, team play, hard work, and the fact that there are no shortcuts in life from sports. He then applied what he learned inside of the gym and took it into the real world.
It wasn't until he met his future father-in-law, Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., however, that he truly appreciated the value of public service.
Despite all of his accomplishments in the weight room, successes on the big screen, and lucrative endeavors in the business world, Schwarzenegger remarked that being governor has brought him the most joy. Instead of waking up and thinking about himself, he woke up and thought about all of the people of California for seven years in a row.
And if a few words in the Constitution were amended, he'd love to wake up and think about the people of America as president of the United States.
For now, though, he'll settle for his speech tour, which made its first stop in the states right here in Buffalo. After Schwarzenegger finished ad-libbing his heartfelt speech, he assured the audience that it hadn't seen the last of the Governator, stating, "I'll be back."
Although Generation's Kathryn Przybyla and I were only supposed to get a five-minute joint-interview with Mr. Schwarzenegger, it quickly grew evident that the bodybuilder turned movie star turned politician didn't mind chatting with us. In fact, he would have loved to answer all of our questions if he didn't have a speech to get to. Although we were only able to ask two questions apiece, we spent 15 quality minutes with the charismatic Schwarzenegger, who shed some light on politics for me. Here's how he responded to my questions:
Political parties tend to slow the policy-making process. With your wife being a Democrat and you being a Republican, does that hint that it's possible for "blues" and "reds" to get along and work together? What do you feel about the slow-moving political process?
"Anyone who slows anything down is just stuck in ideology rather than being stuck in serving the people, because if you're interested in serving the people, it doesn't matter if it's ‘Democrat' or ‘Republican.' No one cares.
If you had to go to the hospital and you needed good care…If it was a Democrat who implemented that law or a Republican, what do you care? Right?...If it's good, it doesn't matter what party. If it is a Republican that has pushed for rebuilding the roads in Buffalo, what do you care if it's a Democrat or a Republican? As long as the roads get done, right? So I always govern on that basis.
People always ask me, ‘do you have fights at home because you have a Democratic wife?' No, because she wants to improve the country, I want to improve the country; she wants to fight for education, I want to fight for education; she wants to go and see the state of California being rebuilt, and so do I.
I think your question is very accurate because it's the parties that create all of this tension and they're the ones stuck in this ideology…Politics are really about your own struggle between your heart and your mind…A good politician has to ask, ‘how can I serve the people the best possible way?' not ‘how can I serve my party the best possible way?'"
What's your take on the legalization of marijuana? What could Proposition 19 have done for the economy of California?
"First of all, you don't ever want to do something like [legalizing marijuana] for the reason of raising money because it's just a moral question: ‘does the state believe in legalizing it regardless of the money?' To me, it makes no difference; the people can make the decision. They can look at all of the facts, look at law enforcement, study other states or other countries where they had legalization of marijuana: did it work or did they regret it? That's what you have to do.
The biggest mistake they made with Proposition 19 was that they kept saying that it would solve the economy. First of all, nothing will save the economy, because the fact of the matter is that the politicians in California that have continuously overspent and they have made huge, huge mistakes with pensions and government-endorsed retirement benefits, which costs a fortune to the state…
We have already de-criminalized it; marijuana is less than a speeding ticket. I've already signed the law that says we shouldn't put people in jail for smoking a joint. We've already done that so I think [it failed] because no one bought in to the fact that it would help the economy – it would have made $1 billion but we have a $25 billion deficit.
So what are we talking about? Should we then change laws of 25 other things just to make that money? No, we just have to be fiscally responsible. California people thought, ‘let's just keep it the way it is and find another way of balancing the budget.'"
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