This Schwarzenegger-lovechild story amazes us. Not because it happened, but because it happened ten years ago, yet, somehow, Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to run successfully for governor--twice!--without the story coming out. This in an era where any rumor, no matter how outlandish, is snapped up by reporters, pundits, bloggers (ahem), twitterers and others and plastered across all media faster than you can say long-form birth certificate. How did Arnold manage to keep an actual, living, breathing illegitimate child under the radar?
The short answer is hush money. Certainly, payoffs to Schwarzenegger's babymama helped keep things quiet. But hush money only keeps things quiet for so long, especially when it comes to those seeking elective office. Just ask President John Edwards.
And Arnold was governor of California! It's not like he was whiling away the days in some low-level political post like mayor of Podunk, South Dakota, or president of Canada. Maybe that helped him. The story sounded too much like a plot twist from a political melodrama for anyone to take it seriously.
Indeed, rumors of illegitimate children circulated during the early days of the governator's political career. But these rumors got buried. It didn't hurt that Schwarzenegger has never come across as some paragon of moral probity: His serial gropings of the fair sex were much ballyhooed during his first campaign. It would, we suppose, be easy for a political reporter, on hearing the lovechild rumors, to simply roll his eyes and assume these were just more of the same.
Still, any aspiring politicians with skeletons in the closet--which is probably all of them--should get on the phone to Schwarzenegger's cover-up people immediately. Those folks are good.
Solipsistography
"Schwarzenegger Whispers Become an Admission"
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