So Rob Reiner decided to do Arnold Schwarzenegger a favor.
While it’s too early to tell how much damage the First 5 controversy has caused to Reiner’s campaign for Proposition 82, it is clear that it was causing Schwarzenegger all sorts of political problems within his own Republican party.
Now that Reiner has departed, the next step for the governor is to move to the forefront and aggressively lead the investigation into First 5’s activities.
If Reiner is correct and there was nothing illegal or inappropriate going on, Schwarzenegger still gets points for making sure that was the case. If there were improprieties, better for the governor to be the one leading the charge to uncover them.
Either way, it’s one big headache that Arnold doesn’t have to deal with anymore. But there’s still a terrific opportunity here for him to be the political outsider who promised to clean up the mess in Sacramento when he first ran for governor.