Could Bustamante have pulled that one off? NOPE!
So, if the measure is who could have advanced the liberal agenda more, I give it to Arnold. Bustamante, being unpopular even in his own party, could never have "accomplished" the things Arnold did.
Please can we argue instead about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Bustamente vs. Arnold? I find there is no significant difference in politicians. They are all trying to find different ways for the government to run your life and take your money for their purposes,which are to increase the wealth and power of the political elite class. It has never been any different in human history. Periodically, the elite political class becomes so greedy and so powerful that the serf class wakes up and kills them off. We live in a historic period where the political elites have devised a method of convincing the serf class that they actually have some voice in the government: the vote. It is an illusion. Occasionally you will find an outlier like Mr. McClintock, but he will never achieve any measure of power. The elites will freeze him out as they freeze anyone out who challenges their hegemony. The oultliers like McClintock do not prove that “the system works”, they only prove that no system is perfect at keeping the serfs in line. But the system we have is about as good as it gets, because it outlasted communism and nazism and combined features of both. The idea that there is any freedom in modern democracies is a cruel hoax. You are a serf of the elite political class which includes Mr. Arnold and Mr. Cruz and anyone in between.
Arnold makes John McCain look like a rock-ribbed die hard Reaganist Conservative.