SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Arnold Schwarzenegger, likely the only recent ex-governor of California with an international following, always rebuffed the question during his seven years in office:
Would you have liked to run for president?
"If I'd been born in America, I would've run," Schwarzenegger said in an interview for the latest edition of the magazine Adweek. "Because now? This was a very good time to get in the race."
Schwarzenegger, of course, could not have run under almost all legal interpretations of the U.S. Constitution's "natural born" clause for eligibility to serve as president. Still, it rarely stopped the speculation, most notably after his well-received 2004 speech to the Republican National Convention. The GOP governor was touted shortly afterward by backers of a proposed constitutional amendment to open up presidential eligibility.
Schwarzenegger announced earlier this month that he will not vote for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, though he is replacing the businessman on the newest iteration of NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice." And though he still dabbles in politics, including an Oct. 5 return to Sacramento to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the state's landmark climate change law, Schwarzenegger has largely returned to his Hollywood career.
"You have to set yourself apart, whether it's policy or movies," he said in the magazine interview. "How do you make them remember you?"
