[NormsRevenge]

Following months of sweet talk and back-slapping, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) faced criticism on July 19, 2004 after calling Democratic legislators 'girlie-men' and urging voters to 'terminate' them at the polls. Sacramento lawmakers irked Schwarzenegger by failing to meet a July 1 deadline for a $103-billion budget amid disagreements over funding for local governments. Schwarzenegger is seen at a January 9 news conference. (Kimberly White/Reuters)

[luvbach1]

The CA Dems would be well advised that further abstinence on their part will only result in Schwarzenegger sidestepping the legislature still further through more direct appeals to the public for their defeat, and more initiatives on the ballot. And Arnie's almost uniquely the guy who can do it. The "girlie man" epithet was not literally a comment on Burton and the other Dems' masculinity in a sexual sense. It was a comment on their inability to have the character to depart from their usual appropriations patterns: that of appeasing special interests to the detriment of the state as a whole.