Schwarzenegger and Nuñez: a Mutual Admiration Society

LA Times ^ | 9/4/06 | Nancy Vogel

[NormsRevenge]

Weeks before the final push of the legislative session, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez strode into the office of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and plucked a campaign button from a secretary's desk. The Democratic Assembly leader pinned a "Schwarzenegger: Protecting the California Dream" button on his shirt and entered the inner sanctum of the governor's Capitol office.

It was a small but telling gesture of just how close Nuñez — who co-chairs the campaign to elect Schwarzenegger's opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides — has become to the incumbent governor, who Nuñez not so long ago said mixed with him "like oil and water."

--snip--

"We have developed a relationship. We have gotten to know each others' families," Schwarzenegger said. He views Nuñez "not only as a politician or as someone that is the other party, but as someone who has a lot of things in common" with him.

"It becomes, then, a different thing than just thinking about what can I get out of him and what can he get out of me," Schwarzenegger said during a July interview. "It's like, how can we work together and how can we help each other."

Nuñez said Friday that he considers the governor "a great friend" and that their relationship is at "an all-time high."

--snip--

But what began as political strategy has grown into a comfortable, pragmatic relationship that in recent weeks resulted in deals to raise the minimum wage, cut the cost of medicine for poor people and restrict industrial greenhouse gas emissions — highlights of a legislative session that both men hailed as one of the most productive in decades.

[Amerigomag]

"The governor is acting like a Democrat, and we are going to benefit from that," Nuñez said. "He might be a Democrat," he added, chuckling. "I don't know."

Some political observers explain Nuñez's improved relations with the governor by speculating that he would like to see Schwarzenegger reelected so that his good friend Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa won't have to face a Democratic incumbent should he decide to run for governor in 2010.

Urban legends always evolve from a grain of truth. Is this speculation myth or disclosure of an obvious reality?

Politics is the application of compromise to achieve a desired end. There is little in the public record to suggest that the Austrian Teddy Roosevelt won't compromise his party to gain personal victory, won't derail the CAGOP's conservatives goals for to enhance his personal gain and won't place his self gratification above the general interests his party's membership and the state's well being.