http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison26jan26,1,5723843.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinionsSorry Arnold, No Two-Picture Deal
Patt Morrison
January 26, 2005
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He may be the outsized outsider as a candidate, but even Schwarzenegger must fit into the constitutional paint-by-number outlines of governance. What producers will be clamoring for filmic moments like these, from Schwarzenegger's Sacramento?
• "Attack on the Girlie Men": When legislators, that other branch of government (remember them? You elected them too) balk at doing Schwarzenegger's bidding, the governor — evidently too timid to just shoot up the Assembly — threatens to go straight to the voters and call a $50- or $60-million election to get his way.
• "Conan vs. the RNs": To Schwarzenegger, bad-guy "special interests" are those that don't give money to his causes. At the annual governor's conference on women in December, he ridiculed as "special interests" nurses protesting his hospital staffing policies, and some women at the conference were dumb enough to cheer him instead of the women working among bedpans and blood.
• "Hope Sinks": Everything is under the dangling budget blade except tax breaks for the loaded. State workers who care for the old and infirm get wage cuts from $10-plus an hour to $6.75, minimum wage. But yacht buyers can keep ducking sales tax, and big companies can still move offshore and dodge paying what they owe the state. If you can buy a yacht, you can pay the flipping sales tax.
• "Worse Santa": Schwarzenegger plays Kris Kringle when the cameras are on and then leaves it to his staff to play Grinch afterward. He was all sympathy at La Conchita, promising the landslide-stricken townsfolk, "I'm going to help them so they can come back." Where's the money to make it happen? Maybe he wrote a personal check off camera.