Damaged goods no more

BACK IN 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger vilified Gov. Gray Davis as an incompetent tax-and-spend chief executive who needed to be booted from office. Everything that was wrong with California was laid at Davis’ feet. The Republican Schwarzenegger won the recall election, and Democrat Davis suffered the ignominy of being the first California governor to be recalled from office. Davis didn’t exactly slink away from Sacramento into oblivion, but he was viewed by many as a sort of Charlie Brown character who never got things right.

Two short years later, Gov. Schwarzenegger stood next to Davis in the state Capitol and extolled him as if he had been one of the state’s greatest chief executives. The occasion was the unveiling of Davis’ official portrait. There was no word of the administration that allowed the state to plunge billions of dollars in debt or slip into an unprecedented energy crisis; instead, there was talk of how Davis and wife Sharon have become friends with the governor and wife Maria Shriver, getting together for dinners and conversations.

If any clearer indicator were needed that Schwarzenegger no longer finds Davis to be damaged goods politically, consider the recent appointment of Susan Kennedy as the governor’s chief of staff, and Daniel Zingale as Shriver’s. Both were former Cabinet secretaries of Davis.

Perhaps one reason for the switch is that Schwarzenegger has suffered political reverses this year and discovered the difficulties of dealing with a Legislature controlled by the opposition party. He knows now that it takes far more than a booming personality and political rallies to govern this state.

Former governors and ex-presidents constitute an exclusive club. Only they know exactly what it takes to do their jobs. Only they can fully appreciate the pressures and the problems that have no obvious or easy solution. The glue of working under such a singular form of duress also has brought the likes of Bill Clinton together with the George Bushes.

Davis’ job performance, as poor as it was at times, did not justify his removal from office a year after his reelection. Presidents can’t be booted from office unless they are convicted of “high crimes and misdemeanors”; no such rule applies to California governors, making it all too simple to stall progress in state government by calling costly recall elections.

The best thing about the portrait ceremony last week is that it allowed Schwarzenegger to show he can be gracious to his political opponents, and it restored some measure of personal dignity to Davis, who was a dedicated public servant in this state for more than 30 years.