SACRAMENTO — Over the course of her career, Susan Kennedy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's new chief of staff, moved from a Democratic Party partisan and abortion rights advocate to a pragmatic dealmaker with a trust in the free market and limited tolerance for stridently liberal approaches to government.
"I can't believe how conservative, even right wing, I've become on these issues," she said last year about her efforts on the Public Utilities Commission, where she has been reviled by consumer activists for her pro-business positions.
An Irish Catholic from New Jersey, Kennedy, 45, who is a lesbian, showcased a fierce intelligence and tactical talent in the early 1990s as head of the California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, and later with the state Democratic Party.
In an ironic twist, she was appointed executive director by then-party Chairman Phil Angelides, who now is campaigning to unseat Schwarzenegger in 2006.
In 1992, she organized a vigorous get-out-the-vote effort that helped elect Bill Clinton president and Dianne Feinstein to the United States Senate.
People who have worked with her say Kennedy rose to the top of Gov. Gray Davis' administration through her intense work ethic, an ability to leap into complex subjects and a skill at crafting compromises on dozens of issues, including farm labor conditions, environmental protection and energy regulation.
"She was in the middle of every tough issue, none of which she knew about before," said John Burton, the former Senate Democratic leader. "She immersed herself in them and learned everything about them and became the point person."
Often in those efforts, said one former senior Davis administration official, Kennedy was frustrated with what she saw as the inflexible demands of ideological Democrats and unions -- something that Schwarzenegger has repeatedly complained about during his two years in office.
As Davis' cabinet secretary, Kennedy was formally in charge of state agencies, but Davis aides said she ended up eclipsing the former governor's chief of staff.
Kennedy oversaw virtually every aspect of the governor's office, from negotiating legislation with lawmakers to deciding how to announce Davis' actions so they would get the most attention. "Smart" and "tough" are invariably the first adjectives offered by former colleagues.
