The universal judgment among California politicians and media analysts is that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged from this month's election as the big winner.

Republican Schwarzenegger, who became governor only last fall after voters recalled Democrat Gray Davis, volunteered to sell voters on issuing $15 billion in state bonds to refinance some of the debt that the state had accumulated during three years of deficit spending - even though polls indicated that just one in three of those voters was inclined toward the bond.

The governor used his celebrity and his self-proclaimed talents as a master salesman to campaign doggedly and single-mindedly and - aided by bipartisan support and millions of dollars in television ads - turned the bond issue, Proposition 57, into a landslide winner. It established Schwarzenegger as a powerful political figure, one who could persuade voters to change their minds, independently of the recall, in which Davis' unpopularity was such an immense factor.

Schwarzenegger is not being shy about using that enhanced status to pursue legislative approval of his other fiscal priorities, such as a budget that closes much of the structural deficit without new taxes, and his other legislative goals, such as an overhaul of the state's much-troubled workers' compensation system. If the Democratic-dominated Legislature and other interests don't make deals with him, he implies and sometimes declares openly, they'll face him at the polls again in the form of ballot measures.

Schwarzenegger's victory appears to be having some effect. Democratic legislative leaders have cooled their previously strident demands for new taxes, serious talks are under way on workers' compensation, and casino-owning Indian tribes are negotiating over Schwarzenegger's demand for a state share of their soaring profits, with a ballot measure ending their gambling monopoly looming for the November ballot.

Schwarzenegger often talks in public about bipartisanship and win-win solutions, but California politics remains, in the main, a competitive game in which someone's win is another's loss. And if he was the big winner on March 2, there must be losers.

Public employee unions are obvious losers. When Democrat Davis was still occupying the governor's suite in the Capitol, the unions began writing a ballot measure that would, if enacted, strip Republicans of their veto power on spending and taxes in the annual state budget wrangle. The measure, which became Proposition 56, would have lowered the voting requirements for budgets and taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent, thereby allowing both to be enacted by Democratic legislators alone, bypassing Republicans.

As they spent millions of dollars to campaign for Proposition 56, the sponsors never mentioned that central aspect. They thought they were being very clever to focus their television ads on other provisions - imposing some very mild sanctions on legislators if they didn't pass budgets on time - that had been added just to make the measure more attractive to voters.

The ploy backfired badly as voters rejected Proposition 56 by a wide margin; it lost in 57 of California's 58 counties, in fact. And the loss was not only embarrassing unto itself, it had the side effect of strengthening Schwarzenegger and other Republicans as they joust with Democrats over taxes. The governor can claim that in rejecting Proposition 56, California voters were rejecting higher taxes.

Another loser is state Treasurer Phil Angelides, who was the only major political figure to oppose Schwarzenegger's bond issue - saying the state should enact higher taxes instead. Voters implicitly rejected his tax increase position when Proposition 56 went down, and explicitly rejected Angelides on the bonds by enacting Proposition 57.

Angelides wants to run for governor in 2006 and clearly hoped that opposing the governor would establish him as the Democratic front-runner - especially since one rival, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, was admitting that he voted for Schwarzenegger last fall, and another, Controller Steve Westly, was campaigning with Schwarzenegger for the bond issue.

It leaves the Democratic field of wanna-be governors in great disarray - and that, too, enhances Schwarzenegger's stature.