Can't We Try Something Different?
A quick search on the Internet and I am reminded how long Susan Kennedy has been the Chief of Staff for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - 6 days, 23 hours, 14 minutes and 2 seconds....and counting. Actually, the website www.StopSusanKennedy.com marks the countown 'as the time since the Governor handed over the keys of Administration to Gray Davis Democract Susan Kennedy.' The California Republican Party Board issued a memo that in part said: 'The CRP Board of Directors strongly disagrees with this appointment, and we will be meeting personally with the Governor to discuss this issue and plans for 2006." The Democrats have been surprisingly quiet, which is a sure sign that they are secretly delighted and are smelling a distinct victory.
Carole Midgen, a State Senator from San Francisco, tells the SF Examiner, those who work at the Capitol think she’ll be superb. … "Susan Kennedy is great at the things a staff chief has to do: get things done in the building … pass a budget … advance legislation … and give honest information."
Getting things done, passing a budget, advancing legislation and giving honest information? Sounds like something that might be good for our State. And certainly the general public is looking for change.
In a recently released statewide survey on Californians and the Initiative Process by the Public Policy Institute of California, 68% of respondents said things in California are generally going in the wrong direction. and only 17% of special election voters think they can trust elected officials to do what is right always or most of the time, and, perhaps most telling, 76% disapprove of the way that the two branches of government are working together in making public policy.
Governor Schwarzenegger figured that things needed to change when all of his initiatives went down in flames.
Susan Kennedy surely learned some lessons when she watched her previous boss, Governor Gray Davis, get recalled.
Maybe it's time to say goodbye to partisan politics for a while and see if we can try something different - like working together to get this State back on track...
Go for it Arnold and Susan...i am willing to give you both some time to make a difference. What say you, readers?
Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive
Comments
Schwarzenegger has nothing to lose and everything to gain. His advisors in the special election did a terrible job - they took one of the most popular politicians in America and let his image get nearly destroyed.
Schwarzenegger doesn't have to change his philosophy one bit by changing his advisors. It isn't easy to be a Republicrat, it isn't easy to take the centrist path, and it's a mistake to think a centrist republicrat isn't driven by the same passion and sincere convictions that drive the extremists and the hacks on the left and on the right.
Schwarzenegger is the only politician in America who is telling the truth about the crisis in public finance - that public employees are immune from the forces of globalization that are decimating the job, health insurance, and retirement security of every private worker in America - and they are bankrupting government in the process. Schwarzenegger is confronting this inequity, and his former advisors manifested his vision with a poorly explained, seemingly unrelated set of special election initiatives that took on everything without explaining the underlying vision. They deserved dismissal.
So far, Schwarzenegger is doing everything right. It will be very, very interesting to see if he continues to tell the truth about public finance - if he does, his legacy will live forever. I support him absolutely.
Posted by: Ed Ring | December 9, 2005 8:18 PM