An intriguing social experiment is under way, and under the radar, in California. It involves Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, but it has nothing to do with the notion of an actor serving as governor. That’s so 1967.

The last time California tried the actor gambit, Ronald Reagan demonstrated that many of the skills required in the theatrical arts contributed to success in the political arts. That was not a comforting lesson for Democrats, who ended up playing supporting roles for Reagan for 16 years, the last eight in Washington. This time the Democrats, who did their best to try to trip up Reagan more than three decades ago in Sacramento, are trying to play a different role. In Arnold Agonistes, they’re trying to accommodate, not to ambush, the new governor.

The biggest symbol of that: the appearance of Susan Estrich, who managed Michael S. Dukakis’ campaign in the 1988 presidential election, on the roster of the Schwarzenegger gubernatorial transition team.

Her thinking: The state of California’s finances is so parlous that, as they say around Mission Control, failure is not an option. But failure is not an option for another reason. Estrich and other Democrats know that the Democrats absolutely, positively cannot win the 2004 election without the 55 electoral votes California provides. That’s more than one-fifth the number needed to win the election, and three electoral votes more than the state provided in the last election.

The theory: A strategy of obstruction in 2003 is a policy of destruction for 2004. “You have a state right now, like the country, where no one has a majority,” Estrich, who teaches law at the University of Southern California, said in an interview. “You need fusion. The only way we lose this state in 2004 is if Arnold’s the victim of a recall effort before he’s had a chance to succeed, or to fail.”

The model — embattled at the time, controversial even in our time — has been around for more than six decades. In the summer of 1931, with the wreckage of the Great Depression raising questions about the survival of democratic capitalism, King George V asked J. Ramsay MacDonald to form a national government to steer Great Britain to safety and prosperity, and the result was a government headed by a socialist but controlled by conservatives.

George W. Bush rejected that model in 2001 in the wake of the most controversial election of our time. In fact, Bush ran for president from the center and then governed from the right. Schwarzenegger is showing signs of taking the opposite tack. He ran from the right and may govern from the center.

The surprising thing is the way top Democrats — partisan Democrats — look at the Schwarzenegger phenomenon. In his remarkable new book on Reagan’s gubernatorial years, published fortuitously just this autumn, Lou Cannon portrays a Democratic Party that was stunned by Reagan’s political triumph in the 1966 election but determined to underestimate the new governor’s skills in 1967. That’s not going to happen in 2003.

“We’ve had a revolution here, but now Arnold has a great opportunity,” said Kam Kawata, who for years has been the strategic thinker behind Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “He’s a remarkable communicator. That could spell trouble for the Democrats, but it could help him in the challenge he has ahead. He can go on ‘Oprah’ and Jay Leno and communicate on venues not available to other politicians.”

But the key for Schwarzenegger is to succeed in politics without succumbing to political behavior. Reagan took the opposite approach; his success was in being a better politician than the politicians. (Reagan’s political hero, Franklin Roosevelt, once boasted that he was one of the nation’s best actors.) But from the start, Reagan had a long trajectory. His move to Sacramento was an interim one; implicitly for his admirers and advisers if not explicitly for Reagan himself, the real goal was Washington.

Not so for Schwarzenegger. Born in Austria, he can’t be elected president. He can’t be placed on a GOP ticket as a vice presidential nominee, either. (Same, sad to say, with Jennifer Granholm, the new Democratic governor of Michigan, who was born in Canada.) The job he’s just won is likely to be the best he’ll ever get. There will be no second act in this American political life.

Which in a way is liberating, both to Schwarzenegger and to the Democrats.

“There are real problems in a state where huge numbers of kids are entering the school system and the colleges and universities are overstressed,” Dukakis, who now teaches California politics at UCLA, said in a conversation the other day.

But now Schwarzenegger, free of the pressure that comes with the lure of higher office, is also free to do the right thing — for those students whose education is endangered and for the millions of seniors whose benefits are in jeopardy. And the Democrats, free of the pressure to try to stop a luminous new force in political life, are also free of the impulse to squelch him. All that freedom in California should be worth something.

“When you elect a non-politician action person to office,” said Ann F. Lewis, who was the Democratic National Committee’s point person on the recall campaign, “you don’t want to hear later that the political system is complicated.” For a brief moment all the principals — Schwarzenegger and the Democrats — have a great opportunity. Think of this as a demonstration project for democracy.

David Shribman is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.