LOS ANGELES — The once sweet relations between George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger now appear to have been as phony as a Hollywood air kiss. Faced with a desperate need for moderate voters in Tuesday’s ballot test of his political power, California’s celluloid governor barely speaks to his fellow Republican in the White House. He even skipped Bush’s latest appearance in the state — his second conspicuous absence from a presidential visit.

Gone are the days when political observers noted that Bush and Schwarzenegger could forge an alliance to put California’s big bloc in the Electoral College back in play for Republicans. Just last year at the Republican National Convention, we saw Schwarzenegger heaping praise on the president — and in the final days of the general election campaign, he was on the stump in Ohio, the state that turned out to prove decisive in the president’s re-election.

Schwarzenegger’s camp now says those appearances severely damaged his once-powerful appeal to California’s nonpartisan voters. He has been backing away from Bush ever since.

Both men are now fighting for their own political survival, and each is discovering that he is best served by ignoring the other. The governor’s liberal views on abortion and gay rights hamper the president’s efforts to hold his conservative base together.

Bush is so unpopular here that it wasn’t enough for Schwarzenegger to simply avoid being seen with him. The state GOP spokeswoman, Karen Hanretty, went out of her way to trash the president on the eve of his visit last month, saying that “unless President Bush is coming to California to hand over a check from the federal government to help us with the financial challenges we face, the visit seems ill-timed.”

Schwarzenegger himself expressed displeasure that Bush was in the state for a GOP fundraiser, which competed with his own efforts to raise last-minute contributions for his ballot initiatives. “We would have appreciated it if he would have done his fundraising after the Nov. 8 election, because you know we need now all the money in the world,” he told reporters.

These are tense days for the Schwarzenegger team. Each of the four initiatives he’s placed on this week’s ballot is in dire trouble. They would cap state spending, strip lawmakers of the power to draw political boundaries, lengthen the probationary period for teachers to five years from two and compel public employee unions — such as those representing teachers, firefighters and prison guards — to seek written permission from members before using dues for political purposes.

In better days for Bush and Schwarzenegger, the governor’s initiatives would be a rallying cry for conservative Republicans everywhere. They represent the party’s core philosophy of limited government, and their adoption by the electorate would help fulfill one of the GOP’s pet projects, hindering the political activity of labor unions.

Instead, Schwarzenegger’s measures could prove to be a setback for the hopes of Republican conservatives around the country — especially if all fail, the outcome opinion polls suggest.

The meltdown in relations between the president and his party’s most famous governor partly stems from the demise of Bush’s once-vibrant pitch to moderates, the purpose of his 2000 campaign vow to usher in an era of “compassionate conservatism.”

For Schwarzenegger, the need to appeal to moderates was much more than a slogan, while for Bush it seems to have been little more than that. Last week’s Supreme Court nomination of conservative hard-liner Samuel A. Alito Jr. is just the most recent example of moves that amount to thumbing his nose at moderate swing voters.

Schwarzenegger’s foes proved just how much Bush’s right-wing image in California is hampering the governor’s efforts to win over moderates. Opponents of his initiatives have aggressively sought to tie his efforts to the Bush agenda. Three liberal Democratic groups have aired television spots with images of the two men embracing. In one, the announcer says, “Arnold’s ballot initiatives are the same misguided George Bush policies that have put America on the wrong track.”

Schwarzenegger countered with a political play that could be quite telling for the 2008 presidential campaign. He reached out to Sen. John McCain. It seems that the man who lost the 2000 nomination to Bush is now the better photo opportunity. McCain recently stumped the state for Schwarzenegger, and now he’s in the television ads for one of the governor’s initiatives.

If Schwarzenegger regains his political footing by winning the voters’ blessing for at least part of his agenda on Tuesday, he could owe plenty to his Arizona friend. That could pave the way for McCain to tap Schwarzenegger’s wealthy donor base if he makes a second White House bid — and maybe even do what Bush failed to do: Give the GOP some hope for a California comeback in 2008.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for MSNBC, CNBC and “The Early Show” on CBS. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.