Their relationship took hold during months of get-togethers, both professionally and for leisure. The two have dined at La Serenata de Garibaldi in Boyle Heights, part of Nunez's 46th Assembly District. They call each other frequently. They will soon be campaigning together for the $37-billion infrastructure bond package on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Their wives, both named Maria, have become friends. They both have teenage children and fret about not spending enough time with them. Both are enthusiastic, athletic and have immigrant roots. And both ascended three years ago from unlikely backgrounds to the top tier of California politics.
Champion bodybuilder and movie star Schwarzenegger, 59, came to California from small-town Austria, the son of a police chief. Nunez, 39, worked his way up through the labor union movement, one of a dozen children of a maid and a gardener.
Neither man, said UC Berkeley political scientist Bruce Cain, is highly ideological. Schwarzenegger married into the true-blue Democratic Kennedy clan and is moderate on such social issues as abortion. Nunez describes himself as a "core Democrat" who understands that a healthy economy works better than government aid to lift people out of poverty.
The two have met on the patio of Schwarzenegger's airy Brentwood villa, where Nunez once smoked a cigar with film star Danny DeVito.
But it took some brutal politicking before they realized they needed each other.
Schwarzenegger swept to power in a historic 2003 recall election in which he vowed to break the grip of special interests on the Capitol. Nunez, newly elected by the dominant Democrats, tried to get tough with him. Little more than a year ago, Nunez was accusing Schwarzenegger of being a bully and untruthful, while a governor's spokeswoman chided Nunez for "histrionics."
In the beginning, Nunez and the governor warily circled each other, one a world-famous personality, the other a little-known politician who shot to a leadership post after only a year on the job.
"It was tough at the beginning," Nunez said, "dealing with a guy who's arguably ... not only the most popular politician in the country, [but] perhaps in the world."
The governor's staff called the speaker "Fibian" for the way Nunez would occasionally tell the public something different from what he had told the governor. In 2004, Schwarzenegger vetoed five of the six bills Nunez sponsored.
