I Love Arnold Schwarzenegger and I'm not Sorry
I don’t think Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfect. I think he’s someone who went for what he wanted without fear of consequences. Sometimes he crashed. He got back up, stronger, smarter, and more reflective than before.
I think the most surprising example of this is his time as governor of California. He came into office, guns blazing, ready to fix everything, and fast. It worked, then it backfired.
In an unexpected turn of events, Arnold ran as a Republican and won the race for governor in the recall election of 2003, which removed the universally hated Democratic governor Gray Davis. Arnold’s go-go-go personality clashed with the establishment, and he alienated people. He was bombastic, “schmoozy” and impatient. He focused on short-term initiatives, most of which ultimately failed.
In 2005, he publicly took responsibility for his administration's failure and vowed to make a change. 2005 is when Arnold really started to stand for something. Toward the end of his first term, he appointed Democrat Susan Kennedy (no relation to those Kennedys), which set him up for a more successful second term. Governor Schwarzenegger was reelected in 2006, and soon after he signed the ambitious Global Warming Solutions Act, which established greenhouse emissions caps and required California to reduce emissions by 25% by 2020. The Obama Administration adopted this act in 2008 with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050.
Honestly, I don’t know if the GWSA of 2006 was successful, and I don’t feel like looking it up. That’s not the point, anyway. The thing I admire the most about Arnold is that when he fucks up, he makes it right. He entered politics with a cocky if not naive perspective, and exited politics wiser and more focused on the future.
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