The Woman Behind Arnold's Defeat

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.

Certainly, one reason Schwarzenegger's initiatives failed was widespread anger over his $70 million "special" election. Lengthening the probationary period before teachers can qualify for tenure (Prop. 74), weakening the unions (Prop. 75), bypassing elected lawmakers on fiscal matters (Prop. 76) and privatizing the redistricting process (Prop. 77) were not going to solve California's financial problems.

But voters may not have gotten this message if it weren't for DeMoro and her indefatigable nurses. Early on they stressed that Schwarzenegger's election was a corporate power grab at the expense of California workers. The nurses hammered home this message almost daily, even when they risked being ostracized. As Lou Paulson, head of the California Professional Firefighters, said: "Rose Ann and the nurses showed us that the emperor had no clothes."

Their activism started last November, after Schwarzenegger suspended key portions of the state's nurse-to-patient ratio to help hospital chains. "That really angered us," says DeMoro. But the nurses protested tentatively, almost timidly, until one pivotal day last December.

While the governor addressed a state convention of 10,000 women, a few nurses unfurled a protest banner that read "Hands Off Patient Ratios." Schwarzenegger grinned for the TV cameras, then said: "Pay no attention...to the special interests. I am always kicking their butts." DeMoro was outraged. "For the Governor to denigrate nurses -- a historically female profession -- while speaking to an audience of women is an affront to women everywhere," she told CNN. Because Schwarzenegger had shut them out of the health-care debate, the nurses decided to take their case to the streets.

"We were told to not make waves, that the people of California would turn against us to support their popular governor," DeMoro says. At the time, Schwarzenegger had a 65-percent approval rating, along with fawning cover stories in Fortune and Vanity Fair magazines.

Even so, the nurses continued marching while the state's firefighters, teachers and law enforcement unions watched from the sidelines. DeMoro rented a plane to buzz wealthy guests at the governor's gated Brentwood mansion during his Super Bowl Sunday party. The nurses flew it over Wall Street while the governor held a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser there. They dogged him in Chicago at a lavish fundraiser, flying a banner that read "Don't Be Big Business' Bully."

When the governor reneged on his oft-repeated promise to restore $2 billion to education cuts in February, students and teachers joined the nurses. They gathered with pickets one rainy day at a Sacramento theater where the governor was about to watch the premiere of Get Shorty 2. But when nurse Kelly Di Giacomo was whisked out of the movie line and into a back room, protestors grew worried. The governor's security team grilled the petite nurse for over an hour until she finally asked why they considered her a threat. One of Schwarzenegger's bodyguards pointed to her scrubs and explained. "You're wearing a nurse's uniform."

"Oh, sure," she said, drolly. "The international terrorist uniform." That intimidating experience emboldened the nurses, whose protests began attracting media attention. By spring, TV news cameras were moving their soft-lens focus from Schwarzenegger to the growing crowds of angry workers, most of them women.