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It’s not just budgets. He vetoed gun control bills mandating microstamping and registring ammo sales more than once, then turned around and signed it. He vetoed bans on recreational gold dredging twice, then signed it. He was for offshore drilling, then changed his mind because he said he saw pictures of the gulf oil spill on TV. It’s what happens when you have no real core beliefs.

Arnold has had a tough time as governor. He inherited a bloated oversized budget and a huge financial mess from Davis, and he doesn’t have the financial expertise to deal effectively with this kind of a crisis. He was slow to figure out how bad this budget crisis could get and he didn’t insist on spending cuts soon enough.

Yes, in a nutshell he wasn't qualified to be governor and any intelligent person should have surmised as much. There was nothing in his background that would have indicated he would be a capable governor. He had name recognition and money behind him and that's all.

The fools who voted for Schwarzenegger really believed the hype just like the fools who voted for Obama believed it. This is very scary when you have an electorate this stupid. We (I live in CA) had a chance for a really good governor in Tom McClintock but the voters were too stupid to elect him. He didn't have name recognition. McClintock would have jumped on the budget problems way back in 2003 and with a little luck the problems we are having today would be very minor compared to the disaster we now have. But a majority of California voters wanted a movie star as governor. Quantum Stupidity. I hope at least a few Schwarzenegger voters will read this post and I hope it sinks in.

“Arnold has had a tough time as governor. He inherited a bloated oversized budget and a huge financial mess from Davis, and he doesn’t have the financial expertise to deal effectively with this kind of a crisis. He was slow to figure out how bad this budget crisis could get and he didn’t insist on spending cuts soon enough.”

What you say is true, and I have some degree of sympathy for him in that context.

At the same time, it’s an object lesson in electing objects.

CA not only has (1) “the general” economic crisis; it has (2) a particularly odious variation since CA’s housing took such a brutal hit (and yes, enjoyed the biggest ramp on the way up) but CA also has (3) a massively, drastically corrupt and Dem-gerrymandered legislature (52 out of 53 districts are amoeba-shaped googahs that look like paint splatters when viewed on a map) that rivals Louisiana’s in terms of entrenched corruption and institutionalized trough-feeding.

As far as I’m concerned (as a CA resident) it’s gotten to the point where it’s not worth it to pay much attention. Not that I’m going to sit out any election, mind you; I am saying it’s not worth the mental exercise to parse the candidates’ positions. I will just dumbly vote Conservative and hope for the best without expecting anything. Because CA will take a solid decade to *show signs* of turning around. In some respects, I’d like to see Jerry Brown elected, because I’m not happy about Meg Whitman and the amount of money she spent (even though it’s her money and she can spend it however she wants-—I’m talking about the empirical outrage of “buying” an election) and maybe, just maybe, when CA goes over the cliff in a flaming debacle, if the legislature is solidly Dem and the governor is Dem and every dog catcher and municipal janitor is Dem, then maybe it will constitute a “teachable moment”. Though I’m not planning on holding my breath.