The Governator was supposedly committing "political suicide" prior to his re-election as well....
He has upset both parties for the same reason he got elected in the first place....CA voters were tired of "politics as usual" and wanted someone with practical business experience....
What people and the press routinely ignore is that, for every drastic cut in funding, Arnold has always added the condition "...Or come up with something substantive that will work...."
For example, the teacher's union has spent millions of lobbying dollars to run a "protect our children" campaign...but when Arnold said "OK, let's put a measure on the ballot and ask the voters how much extra they're willing to give.." HE was the one accused of playing political games.
Arnold's cuts affect EVERYBODY, but only the ones with the biggest lobbying budgets have made the most noise. To date, all the ususal suspects...politicians, unions and special interests have complained that THEY should not be the ones to be cut....but none has proposed an alternative.
It is this kind of "just protect mine" thinking that got the state so deeply in debt the first time....Arnold is a social liberal, but he is basically trying to teach a government and a population raised on "spend your future away" the basic, hard realities of economics....
I wish more politicians were that suicidal...