The response was predictable. Arnold Schwarzeneggerâ??s friends were shocked, bewildered and disgusted.
â??He betrayed the people who supported him from day one,â? said Sacramentoâ??s Ted Costa, who helped launch the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. If you went by the papers and the television talking heads, the revelation about Arnold Schwarzeneggerâ??s out-of-wedlock son would stain, if not destroy, the governorâ??s â??legacy.â?
What legacy?
When he was elected in 2003, California faced a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. When he left office eight years later, the state faced a multi-billion dollar budget deficit.
When he began, he declared his intention to â??tear up the credit card.â? In the years since, heâ??s put more on the credit card than any of his predecessors. In the meantime, trying to pretend that the state had got its fiscal house in order, he exhausted every fiscal gimmick and dodge that was still left to him. He compounded the stateâ??s fiscal problems â?? he and the legislature together -- by running us out of gimmicks. He tried to sell the lottery and the stateâ??s office buildings. He would have sold the sunshine and the beaches had they been marketable.
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