ARNOLD Schwarzenegger's landslide reelection victory is being widely described as the culmination of a political comeback from last year's special election defeat.
But the humble, subdued governor who addressed supporters Tuesday night sounded like a man who understands he's in the middle of a struggle, not at the end of one. In his own mind, he has won not only a second term but a second chance.
Or to be more precise, a second bite.
Schwarzenegger first won office in 2003 by promising changes in the structure of California's government. Those goals have not changed, say longtime aides and friends, but his methods have. He wants what his sometime opponent and sometime collaborator, Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, once dubbed "the whole enchilada" -- compromise deals on major issues facing California.
What kind of enchilada could Schwarzenegger cook up? His recent history suggests that large, complicated compromises are likely. In the summer of 2005, with the governor sliding in the polls, Schwarzenegger and Nunez engaged in secret negotiations that were privately referred to as the Enchilada Talks The goal was to reach agreement on compromise measures to replace the Schwarzenegger ballot initiatives on education, the budget and reapportionment that seemed likely to lose in November.
Notes from those discussions, charted on grids with labels such as "Enchilada Chronicles" and "Road Map to Peace in Our Time," suggest that the two men were willing to negotiate on almost any topic and to try to end the partisan stalemate in Sacramento. The thorniest pension, education, healthcare and political reform issues were on the table.
Although no commitments were made, the two men even discussed changes in the state's education funding formula (the highly popular Proposition 98) and the requirement for a two-thirds vote to pass a budget (a provision with near holy status among Republicans). Those negotiations didn't produce agreements in time to add new measures to the special election ballot.
Privately, it was the failure of the Enchilada Talks -- and not the defeat of his initiatives three months later -- that Schwarzenegger considers the real nadir of his governorship.
Even before the special election, he had decided on the now-celebrated internal staff shake-up that improved his political fortunes. At the same time, he renewed his efforts to find common ground with the Democrats. His 2006 record of compromise legislation -- most notably the four infrastructure bond measures approved by voters Tuesday -- was first built in late 2005.
