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LOS ANGELES -- Arnold Schwarzenegger started out playing the good guy. The Terminator would save the Golden State. "I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento I will pump up Sacramento!" Schwarzenegger said in August 2003 after declaring his candidacy for governor.

Now he is sounding like the bad guy, Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin. Gov. Schwarzenegger warned California voters, "If those initiatives fail [in the May 19 special election], there will be billions of dollars less, so people should be aware of that."

The special-election ballot asks voters to decide six propositions that call for tough choices to resolve the state's monumental budget crisis -- spending cuts, tax hikes, borrowing from state lottery profits, and redirecting earmarked funds from services to children and the mentally ill to the state's general fund. The governor and the majority and minority leaders of the state Legislature put the measures on the ballot. Bipartisanship! Isn't that what voters want? Maybe not, says the Democrat whose governorship Schwarzenegger terminated in 2003.

"You have two conservative Republicans, two liberal Democrats, and a centrist governor who came up with something bipartisan," Gray Davis said in an interview in his Los Angeles office. "The test for California voters who consciously say they want bipartisanship is to see whether they really mean it."

A poll of likely voters by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that five of the six measures are headed toward defeat. If they fail, then what? "There will have to be additional cuts made, whether it is in fire services, law enforcement, health care, or education," Schwarzenegger warns.

Only Proposition 1F seems likely to pass; it would prohibit pay raises for elected officials if the state is running a deficit. Its popularity provides a clue as to why the voters will probably turn all the other measures down. The package of propositions is "an insiders' deal," Davis said, "and there's something in it for everybody to hate."

Schwarzenegger has turned into that most hated of California villains -- a Sacramento insider, making deals with the Legislature. Hated? Look at his latest performance ratings in the PPIC poll.

Schwarzenegger's job-approval rating is down to 34 percent. His party's rank and file have turned against him. He gets 33 percent approval from Democrats and just 38 percent from fellow Republicans. Even so, he's doing better than the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Its approval rating is 12 percent, the lowest figure recorded since assessments began in 1983.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the governor's office has advised law enforcement officials of plans to commute the prison sentences of 38,000 inmates if the ballot measures fail. That number includes 19,000 illegal immigrants. Critics dismiss the reported commutation plans as a scare tactic to drum up support for the ballot measures.

"Trust me: When the doorbell rings, it will be the wolf." --former California Gov. Gray Davis

Are the voters scared? Davis said, "We may not be able to convince the public this time that the wolf is at the door, because we have cried wolf so many times. But, trust me: When the doorbell rings, it will be the wolf."

The problem is, California voters have seen this movie before. Many times. They're not scared of the wolf.

Davis was a centrist Democratic governor. He failed and got thrown out of office in 2003. Schwarzenegger is a centrist Republican governor. He is looking failure in the face. Why can't these moderates make California's government work?

Analysts blame the Legislature's deeply partisan culture along with a rule that requires a two-thirds majority to pass a budget. That gives the minority party veto power. Next year, Californians will vote on a measure that would replace the state's partisan primaries with open ones that would put candidates from all parties on one ballot, followed by a runoff between the top two vote-getters.

The former governor sees political reform as the key to ending the polarization. Voters have already put the drawing of legislative district boundaries in the hands of nonpartisan experts. Davis said, "If the open primary passes, along with redistricting, around 2012 you will start to get more moderate, pragmatic legislators who actually want to solve problems and not just make speeches."