The Woman Behind Arnold's Defeat

By Kathleen Sharp, Pacific News Service

Women have had a bruising time in the public eye lately, ranging from Judith Miller's deceptive reports in the New York Times to Harriet Miers' embarrassing qualifications for the Supreme Court. So when a woman manages to outperform the most confident governor in America, it's worth celebrating. On Tuesday, Nov. 8, every one of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's pet initiatives failed, in large part because of Rose Ann DeMoro, the chief executive of the California Nurses Association (CNA). She and her 65,000-member union spent most of this year building a broad-based populist movement that the once-powerful governor tried to dismiss with glib one-liners.

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