Before the blogging on Tookie Williams revs up, and after several days of the Susan Kennedy firestorm, it’s only fair to give Governor Schwarzenegger credit for three smart personnel decisions he’s made over the last couple of days. Carol Corrigan is not a movement conservative, but she is a strong law-and-order voice and an advocate of judicial restraint. Similarly, Fred Aguiar and Dan Dunmoyer are not ideologues, but both bring legitimate conservative credentials on economic, tax, and public safety issues into the governor’s office.
So in the last ten days, Schwarzenegger has replaced a moderate Republican with a moderate Democrat as chief of staff. He’s replaced a movement conservative with a centrist on the state Supreme Court. And he’s replaced a hard-line environmentalist with two strong pro-business voices on his senior staff. All of which sounds precisely like the Arnold Schwarzenegger who ran for governor two years ago.
My friend Joe Justin lent this discussion just the right amount of perspective in his post yesterday. Concentrating on how Arnold governs in the year ahead, and how this new team impacts his agenda, seems to be a much smarter use of everyone’s time and energy than trying to predict either one of those things in advance. (And I’m still wondering what happens if the governor does not deliver Kennedy’s head on a platter when he meets with the state GOP Board of Directors this Thursday. So far, the only alternative name that’s surfaced is Mel Gibson. If there are more plausible candidates, they’re certainly keeping it to themselves.)
But one thing is for certain: Schwarzenegger is running for re-election as an independent next year. It’s just that he’ll do it with a small “i” rather than a capital “I”. Unless he grants clemency to Williams, of course. At which point, the whole world explodes….