SACRAMENTO — For more than a decade, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to keep secret the fact that he had fathered a child with a member of his household staff, misleading not only to his family, but to millions of Californians who may not have elected him had they known.
Battered by years of fiscal problems, Schwarzenegger's public approval rating had dipped to 23 percent when he left office in January. On his final day in office, he shortened the manslaughter sentence for the son of his political friend Fabian Nunez, angering his shrunken pool of supporters. If that had not already ruled out any political future, observers said, his acknowledgment Tuesday almost surely did.
"This layered on top of the Nunez thing pretty much means his political future is done at this point," said Jeff Randle, a Republican strategist and former adviser to Schwarzenegger.
In the months since leaving office, Schwarzenegger has travelled extensively in Europe and South America, negotiated movie and animated TV show deals and been mentioned as a possible federal appointee.
Schwarzenegger and wife Maria Shriver announced last week that they were separating but gave no reason. Shriver moved out of their Brentwood home earlier this year, after Schwarzenegger acknowledged having a child with a household employee.
"This is a painful and heartbreaking time," Shriver said in a statement. "As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment."
It was Shriver who defended her movie star husband against accusations he groped women late in his 2003 campaign, a defense friend Barbara O'Connor said Shriver would not have provided had she known.
"She staked her whole life on her husband and her family," said O'Connor, professor emeritus of communication at California State University, Sacramento. "This has to be her worst nightmare."
Political advisers who worked for Schwarzenegger during his campaign to recall Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 said they were unaware of the child and acknowledged it would have made the campaign more difficult, if not impossible. When faced with allegations from multiple women in the days before the recall election, Schwarzenegger denied them all and finally said he had "behaved badly sometimes."
Many observers said Schwarzenegger could not have overcome it.
"If it had come out during the recall campaign he wouldn't have been elected," said Dan Schnur, a veteran GOP strategist and director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. "If it had come out while he was governor it would have had a huge impact."
But Schnur said its impact on his legacy will likely be no more than a footnote.
"Arnold has always been pretty up front about being fairly libertine in his personal life," Schnur said. "That's not to minimize the fact that there's a child involved here, but he's never presented himself as a social conservative or as a strong advocate for religious values."
Democratic strategist Bob Mulholland, who fought against the effort to recall Davis, said Davis likely would have survived the recall effort and a Schwarzenegger candidacy would have been doomed if word of his dalliance had become public before the election.
"He would not have been elected," Mulholland said. "It would have been the end of it. If this story had been out before, there probably would have been another 20 or 30 women who came forward."
Mulholland said, "Ultimately, his obituary years from now will just say he was an embarrassment to all and ended up in scandal."
Schwarzenegger apologized in a statement Tuesday.
"After leaving the Governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry."
He went on, "I ask that the media respect my wife and children through this extremely difficult time. While I deserve your attention and criticism my family does not."
Shriver, niece of President John F. Kennedy, left her career as a journalist at NBC News when Schwarzenegger was elected. She became one of the most visible first ladies in recent history, expanding the California Museum and working on poverty and women's issues, including building her annual women's conference into a high-profile, multiday production.
"She gave up her career, and was probably the best first lady I've seen in the 40 years I've been in Sacramento," O'Connor said.
It was in a speech to the California Women in Leadership Association in Newport Beach in 2003 that Shriver vociferously defended Schwarzenegger. She said voters could "listen to all the negativity and you can listen to people who have never met Arnold or who met him for five seconds 30 years ago, or you can listen to me. I advise you to listen to me."
Two of their four children, Katherine, 21, and Patrick, 17, posted messages on Twitter on Tuesday.
"This is definitely not easy but I appreciate your love and support as i begin to heal and move forward in life," Katherine Schwarzenegger wrote.
Patrick Schwarzenegger wrote, "Some days you feel like s--t, some days you want to quit and just be normal for a bit, yet i love my family till death do us apart."
Shriver told The Bee in a 2008 interview that she felt she lost her identity when she resigned from her job in journalism.
"It kind of stopped me in my tracks, from this climb I had been on since I was 21 years old," said Shriver, who was promoting her book, "Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within." "I had been working, always thinking of the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and all of a sudden, the next thing went away, and I was sitting there with no specific career, no specific goals to make me feel that I was successful."
O'Connor said she thinks Schwarzenegger "genuinely loved Maria, and she him."
She said, "It's just very sad. I think everybody feels sadness."
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