Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a reformer? Kate Folmar in the Mercury News sure does. He had all these good ideas. What's not to love. For instance:
Schwarzenegger once famously said, ``I don't need to take money from anybody. I have plenty of money myself,'' and then became a prodigious fundraiser -- collecting more than $6 million for initiative campaigns in July and August alone.
He vowed that he would be more transparent and there would be ``no more decisions in the dark,'' but he has learned the value of privately hammering out some major policy decisions in the amber cigar-smoking tent erected near his offices. He declined his state salary so as not to burden taxpayers, but accepted a $1 million-a-year contract with two muscle magazines (a contract he later ended after its details became public).
But in the end, Folmar concludes,
"Now, as Schwarzenegger campaigns for a special election and a second term, most of his political reform pledges stand as unfinished promises, ideas that were pursued but have withered amid political reality"
Just as his career has withered.
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