Arnold Schwarzenegger is on a big-time political roll, not only in California but globally befitting a man who achieved worldwide fame as an action movie star.

Voters like the governor's tireless peddling of global warming remediation and political "post-partisanship." His approval ratings in California are once again above 60 percent. And he's drawing fawning media attention, including the cover of Newsweek magazine and a cable television segment on an "environmentally hip" automobile makeover.

Schwarzenegger swept through Washington and New York last week for high-concept speeches and splashy media appearances. He'll jet off to India, Canada and Britain later in the year, the latter to address the British Conservative Party and presumably instruct the Tories on political success.

It is all, one is certain, very gratifying to Schwarzenegger's expansive ego, since he's always seen and presented himself as a larger-than-life, historic figure destined to achieve greatness in whatever venue he chooses to function. But is there any substance to Schwarzenegger's current notoriety any lasting benefit to the little people, as it were or is it all about him?

There is no inherent connection between a politician's popularity and his ability to actually perform on knotty public policy issues. One could be a popular slug pandering to the irrational fears and prejudices of voters and constituents or one could be an unpopular achiever.

Indeed, when Schwarzenegger attempted, albeit ineptly, to effect much-needed, bedrock change in the Capitol, his popularity plummeted, only to recover when he backed away and adopted incrementalism and feel-good displays of bipartisanship as his approach to rebuilding status.

Truth is, Schwarzenegger's governorship has been a mixed bag at best. He deserves high marks for at least taking responsibility for big, long-deadlocked issues such as prison reform, the budget deficit, water, healthcare, redistricting reform and infrastructure and promising to tackle the most intransigent of them all K-12 education next year.

But in truth, he's only delivered, at least so far, on infrastructure and then only partially. The global warming legislation that he touts so vociferously is mostly symbolism and would, unto itself, have little impact, even if one accepts the potentially apocalyptic scenario that he and others embrace.

The state budget is still plagued by multibillion-dollar deficits. The prisons are growing worse by the moment and face takeover by the federal courts. Deep fissures have developed on expanding healthcare. And there's still a deadlock on water.

Given the deep-seated ideological divisions of the Capitol, it's highly questionable whether he can truly transcend partisanship, mollify powerful interest groups on any of those issues and effect rational change. Schwarzenegger's second term is a test of whether California is governable at all whether the convoluted, decentralized and perhaps overdemocratized American system of government can work when applied to a highly mobile, infinitely complex and often fractious society such as California.

The stalemates on the major issues Schwarzenegger is addressing developed because of conflicts between the political system and socioeconomic reality; he was elected and re-elected on his promise, and probably genuine belief, that by sheer force of will he could break the gridlock and make state government relevant again.

All the hoopla aside, he hasn't succeeded so far, which is why his current popularity is more a testament to his ability to sell himself as the messiah of a new political paradigm than the product of genuine and lasting achievement for the 37 million people of California.

Dan Walters writes for the Sacramento Bee.