Marrying into the royal family of America, living on the Left Coast, and having Skeletor for a wife will do that to any person.

Early on, as promised, he went to the electorate with a set of propositions to accomplish what the Legislature refused to do.

The voters liked his rhetoric about reining in State spending but not the practical application of his ideas and rejected those propositions.

He took the lesson to heart. The office of governor is in a weak position and must work with a profligate and unrealistic Legislature controlling the budget because we, the voters, have no desire to face fiscal reality.

"The office of governor is in a weak position ".

Is the office of governor in California weaker than in New Jersey? Christie certainly has a battle but he is winning and looks very strong. Is it the man, the era or the state?

He's a man without a chest, as CS Lewis would say.

Christie has lifted more weight in a few months than Arnold has in his entire life. Ultimately, Arnold loved being governator more than he loved doing the right thing. He'd do it again in a second, accomplishing nothing.

I have to agree with you.

If they went back and made Terminator I, keeping it reconciled with Arnie's rep as it has evolved over the last seven years, they'd have to have a killer robot that looks like him travel back in time to just before John Conner was born...track down Sarah Connor...and, y'know, just sort of try to make sure she doesn't get any healthier.

Still better than Gray Davis

All the facelifts have left him looking curiously feminized. Almost, dare I say it, a girlie man.

In all fairness, he has the highest veto percentage of any recent governor. As a result, he has prevented a blizzard of insane lefty bills from seeing the light of day. Still, he caved in to the global warming nutters and for that he cannot be excused.

Position of NJ governor is considerably stronger than CA one. Many of them like Corzine never needed to flex muscles, since our state legislature has been controlled by Dems since prehistoric times. Yet, last year we elected a bull of a man, unbeholden to special interests, inimical to public employee unions & keenly aware of his power. So far, so good. Last week he derailed a gravy train for every Dem politician & union boss in northern NJ & NYC (new tunnel to NYC, "worth" to them 4B per mile). Arnie had to veto same bills every year, since CA legislature is loonier than our NJ one & wrote them as state's laws. No man can fight alone for so many years.

"He's a man without a chest, as CS Lewis would say."

Quite ironic, especially for a former Mr. Universe...

That was my point, too, newton.

There was a special election for a reason. If the people did not wish to hold up their end of a reality check there was no law preventing the Governator writing out his resignation, but he chose to stay and become one of them.
It's going to be really interesting to watch the check California has written bounce.

I think your post was secretly a good start to a potential series of posts about this topic. A lot of people pretend to know what they’re talking about when it comes to this topic and generally, very few people actually get it. You seem to know about it however, so I think you should run with it. Thanks!