Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he made mistakes

The L.A. Times reports:

Reflecting on four years as the state's chief executive, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that he now regrets a number of the policies he championed in his early days in office and acknowledges his own rhetoric was at times overheated and naive.

During an unusually self-reflective interview with Times editors and reporters, the governor no longer talked like the outsider he portrayed when he campaigned to recall his predecessor from office in 2003.

In that campaign, he labeled many state legislators as inept. Now, he spoke of how it would be a "disaster" for term limits to force some of the same politicians from their offices. He scoffed at the notion that ridding the state of the "waste, fraud and abuse" he railed against in his early days would actually do much to help California's finances. He no longer insists that the state's troubled schools can be repaired without spending more.

"I have learned a lot of things where I felt one way before I went into office, and all of a sudden you learn things are not quite this way and you change," he said. "People call it flip-flopping. I would rather flip-flop when I see something is a wrong idea than get stuck with it and stay with it and [keep making] the same mistake."

The interview came as the governor toured the state, lobbying for the budget plan he unveiled last week. Schwarzenegger is once again confronting a $14-billion shortfall -- the same size as the shortfall in his first budget -- despite promises during his first term that California would never again fall into such bad financial shape.

His plans for balancing the budget are familiar: aggressive spending cuts coupled with a hard cap on spending in years when revenues rise, a proposal that resembles the one he made when he first came to office.

But the pitch is very different. Gone is the bluster and braggadocio. The governor, who came armed with his trademark charts illustrating the upward spiral of state spending, spoke softly, looking tired from a week of explaining to community groups, business associations and editorial boards why he believes that the state needs to close 48 parks, release tens of thousands of inmates early and roll back or eliminate healthcare programs for the needy.

Asked why he no longer was promising to close the shortfall by cutting fat from government, Schwarzenegger took a stance sharply at odds with his first-year statements.

"If you look at the $14.5 billion we need, you don't even have to look there," he said. "You are not even going to find 1% there."

What's the difference between Arnold and a California Democrat?