THE GOING GETS STRANGE ARNOLD'S ASCENDANCY UPS MEDIA, POLITICS.

Byline: JILL STEWART  Capitol Punishment

HE'S been the governor-elect for less than two weeks, but already the rise to power of Arnold Schwarzenegger is having the oddest effect on the Very Important People of California.

First, hell froze over when leftist Sen. Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles - a former labor organizer who foolishly pressured outgoing Gov. Gray Davis into signing the unpopular bill giving unrestricted driver's licenses to illegal immigrants - pledged to work with Republican Assemblyman Bob Pacheco, a guy Cedillo usually treats like a cipher.

On the far right, legislators who oppose anybody who backs abortion - and who sometimes even pray for their souls - were sending out missives about how great things will be under Arnold, who backs most abortion rights.

From the hard-hard left came unaccustomed quiet as the feminist-lesbian-gay legislative clique reeled from the 62 percent vote Californians awarded to the two Republicans, Schwarzenegger and state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks. This faction is seething over voters' shrugging off reports of groping.

The big dogs at the Los Angeles Times were acting strange too, as John Carroll, the executive editor, took the extraordinary step of penning an opinion piece on Oct. 12 castigating critics - including me - for blasting the Times' coverage as biased.

In a recent column, I whacked the paper for failing to undertake a probe of violent staff-bashing and temper fits by Gov. Gray Davis even as the Times devoted vast resources to combing Schwarzenegger's life. I also took on the Times for irresponsibly running its groping hit piece in the eleventh hour.

Then, in yet more strange post-election behavior, a respected, long-time Timesian involved in the Schwarzenegger probe called me to say I was being too easy on the paper - that Carroll set out to hurt Schwarzenegger from the start, and the newsroom had been gripped by a get-Arnold frenzy. (His off-record comments are at www.jillstewart.net.)

It's not too hard to guess why we're seeing so much post-election weirdness among the insiders.

On the far right, legislators subsumed their moral views to get a Republican governor. Now they're trying to show they can be pragmatic - a thought process Sacramento's ultra-right has rarely dabbled with. That could be fun to watch.

One of the few pragmatists among them, Assemblyman Ray Haynes of Temecula, set the tone, sending out this near-haiku, ``Our current system has turned into a process of pay-off and plunder. Revolutions result when trust in government disappears. So do recalls.''

Meanwhile, those who opposed Schwarzenegger are in a sticky wicket. An Oct. 15 poll from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that people are so engaged in politics due to Schwarzenegger that he can now take laws directly to them, through initiatives, if the Democratic-controlled Legislature balks.

How things do change. The Democrats were on a roll until just a couple months ago. ``Now,'' says one aide, ``we are just trying to hold things together and talk about bipartisan ways out of this.''

Remember, leaders of the Assembly four months ago got caught, via a microphone they did not know was live, discussing ways to lengthen the budget crisis and make life worse for people in California, in order to make voters welcome significantly higher taxes.

The Latino Caucus was so partisan that it banned newly elected Latinos from the group, such as Bonnie Garcia of El Centro, because Garcia had the right skin color but the wrong beliefs. Garcia was - ack! - a Republican. Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh of South Gate, the caucus chairman, enjoyed implying people were racists if they disagreed with him.

Now, if they want any laws signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, they may have to stop name-calling and start compromising.

Sacramento's feminist-gay crowd has the most vexing problem. The governor-elect works with gays, hangs out with gays, posed for gay magazines, and is so immersed in Hollywood it's an issue he handles comfortably. But the feminist-lesbian-gay legislators aren't like glitzy gays in Hollywood. Like the city of San Francisco itself, they've worked up a festering sore for Schwarzenegger and his history of man-handing women.

Though subdued now, watch for the terrible twins, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl and Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg of Los Angeles, to be first to go for his throat. ``They hate his guts,'' one gay lobbyist tells me.

As for the media, the Times now has to prove it deserves equal access to a man it tried to ruin. That should be interesting.

It matters not which side you were on, it's all going to be delicious to watch. So pull up a chair. There's a solid rumor that outside TV news stations - maybe even the big cable networks- - may open bureaus in the capitol to beam us the drama. Now that we have a superstar governor, it seems that a show is about to unfold.

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(color) With all this post-election weirdness, Gov-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger has already turned state politics on its head.

Eric Reed/Staff Photographer