When Sacramento Bee political columnist Dan Walters first spoke at a Rancho Murieta Women's Club luncheon in 2003, California voters were on the verge of recalling then-Gov. Gray Davis and selecting Arnold Schwarzenegger to take his place.

Walters returned to the Country Club Wednesday. This time he told a group of more than 100 Women's Club members and their guests that Schwarzenegger's experience as governor is proof that California has "a chronic inability to come to grips with the issues that arise out of what we are -- a large, growing and extremely diverse state.

"If Arnold Schwarzenegger with his celebrity, his independence, his middle-of-the-road politics, his ability to capture media attention -- all the attributes he brings to the governorship that very few people have - if he can't make it work, ... if he can't move it, then you have to assume it can't be moved. ... The structure is fatally flawed. We have discovered in California ... the fatal flaw in the American system of government, which is that it was not designed for a society that's as diverse as this one. ... This was a Kansas on the West Coast at one time. No more and never again. ...

"California is faced with this crisis in governance. We will either face it and conquer it or we will see ourselves, I think, devolve more and more into a collection of mutually hostile tribes defined by ethnicity, age, economic standing, geography, whatever. ...We cease then having any sense of community or common purpose. ... The only antidote for all that is civic leadership of some kind."

Walters told an anecdote about a group of neurosurgeons disagreeing on the health plan proposed by Schwarzenegger to illustrate how the state's "stakeholder groups create, divide, subdivide ... and fragment all over the map ... We're talking about literally dozens of stakeholder interest groups."

California added more checks and balances to the federal model of governance it adapted, and these became a way "to stop anything from happening," said Walters.

He called the initiative process "a terrible way to make policy ... but it's the only avenue we have to make policy. ... People become frustrated with the lack of action. ... Either issues get pushed up into the ballot, which is why you have seen this explosion of ballot measures ... or issues get pushed down into the hands of local governments to deal with as best they can. We really need a 21st century government."

He said no county boundary has been changed in 101 years and it's been 150 years since the size of the legislature was changed.

Walters leavened his remarks with a Schwarzenegger imitation when he was talking about the budget deficit, sardonic references to the politics he's seen play out in the Capitol over the years, and the punch line from the vintage "Pogo" comic strip -- "We have met the enemy and they is us."

He spoke for over half an hour and then took questions from the audience for a similar amount of time before leaving to catch a plane as the audience stood and applauded.

Al Dolata, who attended with his wife, Judy, asked Walters if there was any form of government he thought was a better system for California, prefacing the question with, "Your view is essentially deeply pessimistic. You say that our system is a failure."

Walters replied, "The parliamentary system I think would work better in a place like California. ... We need less buck-passing and more accountability. ... Margaret Thatcher completely, utterly changed England (because) she was empowered to make those changes. And that's the kind of dynamism we need in a place like California which is growing so rapidly and changing so rapidly we need a government to keep up and adapt to that. ...

"It's just as democratic. ... The executive or prime minister ... has a parliamentary majority, either an outright majority or a coalition majority" and there could be 15 political parties represented if necessary, he said.

Walters was also asked who he thought would win the Democratic nomination for president. Probably Barack Obama, he said, noting that the super delegates -- a "very undemocratic" concept -- will make the difference. Walters theorized that independent voters are getting turned off by the primary process for the Democrats, dissipating what had been the party's "golden chance" to take the presidency.

"Whichever one wins is going to come out of this whole experience damaged goods," he said of the contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton.