California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing criticism after calling US Democratic legislators "girlie-men" and urging voters to "terminate" them at the polls.
Sacramento lawmakers irked Mr Schwarzenegger by failing to meet a July 1st deadline for a $103 billion (€68.4 billion) budget amid disagreements over funding for local governments.
"I'm going to make you officially, right now, the Terminators," he told a cheering crowd on Sunday. "If they do not pass my budget, on November 2nd, I want you to go out and go after those Democratic legislators, they are obstructionists. Go out there, vote them out of office."
On Saturday, he referred to "those girlie-men up there in Sacramento," an epithet borrowed from an old Saturday Night Livetelevision skit about body building. He has also revived other lines, both well known and obscure, from his movies.
"It's just unbecoming, the governor of the greatest state in the union. It's a great disappointment to me," Democrat John Burton said. "We try to work together. We do get along personally together, although that envelope is being pushed a bit."
The "girlie men" line has sparked criticism even from Schwarzenegger's fellow Republicans. "Of course it's not a good idea; liberals don't have a sense of humour," Republican State Senator Tom McClintock said in an interview.
The San Francisco Chroniclechided Schwarzenegger in its lead editorial on Monday: "Schwarzenegger . . . shifted from brutish to boorish this weekend when he called the resisting lawmakers 'girlie-men' - a term with an ugly history as a slur against gays."
Analysts said Schwarzenegger risked alienating legislators whose good will he will need again in the future. But most observers also agreed that somehow the governor and legislators would eventually forge a compromise on the budget.