KENNEDY IN!

[UPDATE]: John Howard at Capitol Weekly has the skinnyon the Kennedy appointment, including this great nugget: Kennedy decided to accept the chief of staff's position following lengthy meetings at the Hyatt, but she had been approached earlier by the governor recently in Los Angeles to take the job--but turned it down. She changed her mind after Schwarzenegger, who approached her anew to accept the post, agreed to give her broad authority over the staff. Schwarzenegger also had approached others to take the post, including former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who turned him down. And also: Kennedy's hiring was the culmination of a five-hour meeting, sources said, at which Kennedy demanded--and got--sole authority over hiring and firing the executive staff. The simmering rumors around the Capitol have come to a full-throttle boil that Gov. Schwarzenegger will appoint Susan Kennedy, who help run the ship of state under Gov. Gray Davis, as his new chief of staff. Now the chief of staff's job is arguably one of the most powerful in the state, running the various departments and acting as the final go between for those who want to reach the governor. Kennedy is a Democrat. She worked for Davis, and Feinstein before him, and over at the FlashReport blog there are already rumblings of discontent in Republican circles. Fleishman opines: I am not sure how Governor Schwarzenegger expects Republicans to react to this appointment. This is not an appointment to some peripheral position in his administration. The Chief of Staff is the most central role on the Governor's entire staff. I think it would be premature to comment on a rumor, even a 'very confirmed' one at this point. But you can be sure that there will be a lot of questions, frustrations, concern and anger from the base if this turns out to be true. While Republicans are not a majority in California by a long shot, there are still many million of us out here. It doesn't seem plausible that there was not one person who could ably serve in this capacity who agrees with the Governor's general philosophy enough to register in the same political party as he does. More on this tomorrow.