Because Gray Davis Was So Popular

Wouldn't you want to stay away from aides to the only recalled governor in California history?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, launching an overhaul of his administration, today named a former Democratic Party activist and high-ranking aide to Gray Davis as his new chief of staff.

The hiring of Susan P. Kennedy — a former executive director of the California Democratic Party, longtime abortion rights activist and Cabinet secretary to Davis, the Democrat whom Schwarzenegger replaced — signals a shift in direction for the Republican governor.

Yeah, a shift into desperation territory.

Look, Gray Davis was as much a marriage of convenience for California liberals as Schwarzenegger is for hardcore conservatives. So by appointing someone who shares his liberal social issue platform (which will piss off those hardcore conservatives) but also embodies Gray Davis' DLC, pro-corporate stances (which will piss off liberals), Schwarzenegger has appeared to alienate everyone in the state with one simple move. When you get quotes like this from conservatives:

"She embodies everything I have spent my life opposing. It obviously raises more problems and concerns about where he is headed next year," said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly. "There is a list of things now where it appears we would have been better off if Gray Davis were governor."

And quotes like this from progressives:

On the other side of the political spectrum, Barry Broad, a union lobbyist, said the moves suggest Schwarzenegger's government is "literally turning back into the Davis administration before our very eyes. I can't believe that they recall them and then hire them back."

...you're simply asking to be beaten by 50 points next November. The only people that seem to like her are exactly the entrenched career politicians in Sacramento Schwarzenegger spent a whole year fighting. And, Kennedy claimed she voted for every one of Arnold's odious initiatives (which puts her in a distinct minority in the state).

Smooth move.

P.S. She also happens to be gay and married to her partner, which is pretty interesting for the Chief of Staff to the governor of the nation's largest state to be. Maybe we'll get to a post-civil rights day and age where that's not so unusual.