Schwarzenegger press secretary is moving on

SACRAMENTO —  Margita Thompson, one of the governor’s highest-ranking Latina aides and his main spokeswoman, said Thursday she is leaving her job as press secretary next month.

Thompson has been with the governor since the start of his term, and with his reelection victory secured, said she was a bit weary and ready to move on.

She will become vice president of corporate communications for Health Net in Woodland Hills. One of her mentors, former Schwarzenegger chief of staff Patricia Clarey, became chief operating officer of that company in March.

“It’s a good time to go,” said Thompson, 39. “I’ve done so many wonderful things with the governor. I’m looking forward to building on what I’ve learned here.”

No replacement for Thompson has yet been named. She is the third senior Schwarzenegger aide whose departure has been announced since the Nov. 7 election. This week, Schwarzenegger officials confirmed that education secretary Alan Bersin and legislative affairs secretary Richard Costigan were resigning.

More departures are expected as Schwarzenegger reconfigures his staff for the second term, which begins Jan. 5.

Blunt and plain-spoken, Thompson held one of the most taxing jobs in Schwarzenegger’s administration. Her office was a magnet for inquiries from the foreign press, entertainment shows, national TV news correspondents and California newspapers that bolstered their statehouse bureaus after Schwarzenegger won the recall election in 2003.

In one of her first days at work, Thompson was swarmed by reporters after a Schwarzenegger news conference, trying gamely to keep up with the flood of questions.

“I’m sorry to see her go, because I like her personally and she’s done a terrific job and she’s been there since the beginning,” California First Lady Maria Shriver said in an interview. “But I’m happy for her, because I think it’s a tough life and a tough schedule for anyone.”

Thompson came to the governor’s office from the TV show “Larry King Live,” where she was a political producer. Having worked for former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and former Los Angeles mayor and GOP gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan, she had a raft of political contacts in California.

King’s show had sent her out from Washington to secure an interview with Schwarzenegger during the recall campaign. She got it -- and a job offer. The governor’s campaign team asked her to interview with Schwarzenegger for the vacant press secretary position. And the two hit it off. Thompson, who is single, asked the governor if he would help her find a boyfriend in Sacramento.

No, he said: “We’re going to want you to work too much.”

“I thought he was joking,” Thompson recalls, laughing.

“She walked out of the room and the governor turned to me and said, ‘I think we have our choice,’ ” said Rob Stutzman, the governor’s former communications director.

With a boss prone to verbal gaffes, Thompson often found herself having to explain comments that some perceived as insensitive or wrong. Last year, Schwarzenegger, himself an immigrant, said in a speech that the United States needed to “close” its borders.

“My ears perked up and my head snapped back,” Thompson recalls. “Did he just say what I thought he said? I made a beeline for the back of the room” where reporters were listening.

What he meant to say, she whispered, was that the U.S. needs to “secure” its borders.

Her clarification made it into coverage of the speech, but the governor’s original comment proved politically damaging nonetheless.

Today she says of Schwarzenegger’s gaffe: “It’s a language issue. English is his second language, and we all misspeak.”

Thompson, whose mother is of Mexican descent, is fluent in Spanish. She helped the governor’s outreach to Latinos through interviews on Univision.

Her departure leaves only a couple of high-ranking Latinos in senior levels of Schwarzenegger’s administration, including Rosario Marin, secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency; and Henry Renteria, director of the Office of Emergency Services.

“You can always do better,” Thompson said of the governor’s appointment of Latino aides. “The challenge is you need to find the right person for the job. I always want people to know that I got my job because I’m the best person, not because I’m Latina and a woman.”

Though Schwarzenegger easily won reelection, some California Republican operatives are reluctant to credit Thompson.

They say she was part of an undisciplined communications team that, early in the first term, allowed the governor’s job approval ratings to plummet. Only when chief of staff Susan Kennedy and Adam Mendelsohn, now the communications director, came in a year ago did Schwarzenegger’s fortunes improve, they said.

When Mendelsohn took over, Schwarzenegger’s “approval ratings were in the mid-30s, relations with the press corps were very poor and the governor’s events were cartoonish and had a Jesse Ventura quality to them,” said one GOP strategist familiar with the administration.

Through it all, Thompson remained on good terms with the boss.

She joined the governor last year at the annual weekend bodybuilding exhibition in Columbus, Ohio, that bears his name: “The Arnold Classic.”

As the governor waded through a crowd of fans, he spotted bodybuilder Roland Kickinger, who played a young Schwarzenegger in the 2005 movie “See Arnold Run.”

Schwarzenegger looked back for his press secretary. “Margita!” he called. “Margita!”

Thompson pushed through to the front of the line. Kickinger threw his arm around her. The governor pointed at both of them. Cameras clicked. The photo hangs in her Capitol office.

She still could use a boyfriend, she said, but, “I’m thrilled I took the job. It changed my life.”

peter.nicholas@latimes.com