The American Spectator

The Schwarzenegger California’s voters thought they were getting would not have continued to push a $14 billion “universal health care” bill — built on tax increases and an assessment of crippling financial penalties on businesses large and small — through the state legislature and onto the November ballot when the budget deficit being faced by his state was of an equally obscene amount.

And the Schwarzenegger California’s voters thought they were getting would not have called a meeting with the editorial and reportorial staff of the Los Angeles Times for the purpose of apologizing for his misguided adherence — however fleeting and ineffective — to even semi-conservative principles.

It had seemed for some time that the man currently serving as Governor of California was not the man the citizens of the Golden State once thought they were putting into office. His actions during the last several months of his term should have made that clear enough.

But in case any doubt remained, last week’s public renunciation of his former Neanderthal self, including requests for forgiveness from the state’s liberal Establishment, should crush it utterly.

Schwarzenegger’s loyalty is no longer to the people who so trustingly put him in office. His intention is no longer to abide by a single promise he made or stick to any principle he espoused.

Californians are experiencing the downside of going with a “glamour pick” for the state’s highest office. He seemed too good to be true and, it turned out, was. Though Schwarzenegger’s term will not expire for another two years, now is not too early for the people of California to start vetting gubernatorial hopefuls far more closely than they did the current one.