He's going to have to placate those guys or otherwise nothing gets done.

It's part of the mythology, which is: The place didn't exist before I got here. Back home, you were Norma Jean. In California, it's Marilyn Monroe.

Union issues by and large are payroll issues, which are very visible in the state budget and in turn make it easier to demonize. But it's a very one-sided argument to attack labor as if there is no such thing as corporate contributions.

Schwarzenegger, like Brown and Wilson, could certainly make a comeback and be re-elected.

So far, guys have been picking each other up. If someone can't get it done, someone else gets up to the plate and takes charge.

Successful politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.