Retired nurse Linda Alaimo of Glendale was taken aback by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts in public services for the poor.
"I really am disappointed in him, and I know quite a few of my friends are," said the 82-year-old Democrat, whose vote for Schwarzenegger was her first for a Republican.
Yet Alaimo remains open-minded about the iconoclast who took power two months ago: "He just got in there, so you've got to give him a chance."
That forgiving mood is a blessing to Schwarzenegger. Facing a $14-billion shortfall, he proposed budget cuts that could have set loose the sort of voter anger that whipsawed his deposed predecessor, Gray Davis. Instead, there is little sign of harm to Schwarzenegger's standing among the Californians who are pillars of his political strength: the swing Democrats and independents who voted for him.
In Glendale, a bellwether area for California elections, nearly two dozen such voters this week voiced no more than mild misgivings about Schwarzenegger's budget -- and no regrets about backing him. By and large, they were pleased to see a governor with no experience in politics bring to Sacramento the kind of new blood they had hoped he would. He inherited the fiscal mess, most said, so he deserved leeway in cleaning it up.
"You have to give the man time to do his job," said student and part-time painter Paul Carney, 36, a Democrat who voted for Schwarzenegger.
Not that Carney agrees with everything the governor has done. On a visit to the Glendale Central Library, where he catches up on local newspapers, Carney faulted Schwarzenegger for not proposing higher taxes to spread sacrifice more widely. By Carney's reckoning, the governor also shortchanged public schools by proposing $2 billion less than the minimum set by voters under Proposition 98.
"That's why a lot of people voted for him, because he said he wouldn't touch education, and then he turned around and cut it," Carney said.
Yet Carney still sees Schwarzenegger as "a breath of fresh air" in a capital overrun by insiders trading favors with scant regard for the public interest.
Parke Skelton, a Los Angeles campaign strategist, has found a well of goodwill toward the governor in private polls for Democratic candidates grappling with the political forces that put Schwarzenegger in office.
"People recognize the state is in a crisis, and they're rooting for him to succeed," Skelton said.
