California Conservative

After expressing our frustration last night upon learning the news of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s latest appointment, we might’ve missed the bigger picture.

More importantly, we didn’t follow our own advice: Politics is a game, and it needs to be played. The SacBee’s Dan Weintraub suggests “the governor’s decision to hire Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff is a smart move.”

Weintraub explains the “strategery” we were asking about:

The former Democratic Party operative and aide to Dianne Feinstein and Gray Davis is driven, dogged, and smart, knows the Capitol inside and out and presumably wouldn’t be taking the job unless she were dedicated to Schwarzenegger’s success. The fact that she is a Democrat simply furthers — and emphasizes — what has been an ongoing trend with Schwarzenegger hiring people with whom he feels comfortable, regardless of their ideology. This administration has already been the most bipartisan, in terms of personnel and appointments, of any in recent times, despite significant spin to the contrary.

Right-wingers who are gnashing their teeth at the moment need to remember that, except on economic issues, Schwarzenegger has never been a conservative. He supports abortion rights and gay rights, and takes environmental advice from a real Kennedy: RFK Jr. His most important adviser, meanwhile, has always been his wife, Maria Shriver, a Democrat and Kennedy family member.

That’s not going to change no matter who is on his staff. And on economic issues, Susan Kennedy of late has been sounding a lot more like Milton Friedman than like her former bosses. She is a Democrat who believes her party has lost its way in always looking first to government regulators rather than individual initiative and free markets to solve problems. Sounds like a perfect fit for Schwarzenegger to me.

The early speculation is that hiring Kennedy will hurt Schwarzenegger with Republican voters. I don’t buy it. Most voters will never know who is in the governor’s inner circle. And virtually all voters will judge Schwarzenegger on his results, not on his choice of advisers. If Kennedy helps Schwarzenegger accomplish the goals he has set for his administration, she will help him get reelected.

We appreciate Weintraub’s optimism. And perhaps he’s right on.

However, we shall continue to worry about what compromises and concessions it’ll take for Gov. Schwarzenegger to “work” with the Democrats in Sacramento.

As we’ve seen before, they can’t be trusted.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2005 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Arnold, California, Elections, Sacramento. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.