Posted on 01/26/2010 6:56:02 PM PST by NormsRevenge
It's been four years since StopSusanKennedy.com was born.
That was just the start of a ruckus set off when Sacramento's political cognoscenti got wind that the diminutive ex-Cabinet secretary to recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis had been hired - as chief of staff for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Kennedy remembers those days well. "I was thinking, 'Can I really do this ... when half of the people in the horseshoe (slang for the governor's office) probably want to slit my throat?' "
...
As the headlines from one conservative Web log attest, some things have changed since the former abortion rights activist, California Democratic Party executive director and press secretary to Sen. Dianne Feinstein signed on with Schwarzenegger in December 2005.
...
Kennedy, the 49-year-old uber-operative who sits at the top of California's eat-or-be-eaten political food chain, says she hasn't given up trying. She laughs about her recent dream in which she and Schwarzenegger raced out "with our Superman capes on" to save the world's eighth-largest economy.
Critics say dream on: Kennedy and her boss are more often getting lashed for his actions - many say inaction - in trying to extricate California from a $21 billion deficit, the latest in a string of crushing deficits going back to 2007. At the same time, their big plans for health care reform and a "year of education" were buried by the state's fiscal woes.
But Team Schwarzenegger's designated hitter hasn't toned down her unorthodox style: The Marin County hot-tub-owning, skydive-loving, hard-talking, married lesbian aide-de-camp remains the woman to watch in state politics.
The 5-foot-2-inch ("on a good hair day") blonde, a driven operative and strategist, relishes competing at every level - from pay grade to paintball - with "the big boys" who dominate the Capitol, as she once put it.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Arnold is a Republican? Who knew?
If it did, it would have explained that Kennedy served on the state public utilities commission, which oversaw an "energy crisis" in 2001 (and at the time was headed by former Clinton '92 "war room" supervisor Loretta Lynch).
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