ANSWER LA was outside protesting, while Marc Cooper was inside the stadium listening to Schwarzenegger’s speech at Santa Monica College on Tuesday. Arnold got clobbered.
As I watched the governor give the commencement address at Santa Monica College, I started to wonder if Arnold, and his political handlers, have completely lost touch with reality.
I emphasize the word “watched†instead of listened because the jeering and hissing and booing and chanting were so overwhelming that neither I nor the couple of thousand graduating students and their families could actually hear much of what he said.
This time last year Schwarzenegger was riding high, making smart deals with the Democrat majority while even liberal union activists were lobbying the legislature on his behalf to pass new Indian-gaming compacts. Now, a mere 12 months later, his favorability ratings in freefall, he finished his speech under an ominously dark coastal sky. As chants of “Hypocrite! Hypocrite!” filled the air, the flustered governor hurriedly left the stage and was whisked away in a golf cart a half-hour before the ceremony ended.
A media-savvy “personality” beat a colorless incumbent in an upset election and a year later is Dead Man Walking. It’s happening to Arnold, could it happen to just-elected Antonio Villaraigosa, the new mayor of L.A too?