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Hewitt didn't seem convinced. Here was his take:

http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/08/21-week/index.php#a000130

Gov. Arnold was a guest on the program today. You can read a transcript of the enitre interview over at Radioblogger, but the key exchange, in my view, came at the end of the conversation. The confirmation of Janice Roger Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has created a vacancy on the California Supreme Court. Brown was the most conservative member of California's highest court, and though she often was obliged to dissent, she was a voice for serious scholarship from the right side of the legal spectrum in a state inceasingly overwhelmed at every level by left and hard left thinking.

Her replacement matters a lot to center-right conservatives, and Arnold's choice will be a huge deal to the center-right troops whom he will need in the fall of '06 if he declares for re-election.

It would be the smartest, and easiest thing in the world to nominate former Congressman, state legislator and judge James Rogan, who's up from the streets life story is inspiring to all people who know it.

It will be a disaster if Arnold picks a "centrist" or a time-serving state or federal judge.

If the Los Angeles Times is happy with the appointment, Arnold will have stumbled. Badly.

Conservatives have little to show for their support of Arnold to date. Things would have been worse under Davis, yes, but the blowback might have been enoguh to trigger statewide realignment. This is the opportunity Arnold needs to use to say "thanks" to his supporters on the right while at the same time doing the courts a favor by keeping alive a vibrant strain of legal reasoning, which though in the minority at present, represents a significant slice of California thinking.

I don't think we hold high hopes... (not that I'm holding my breath waiting for him to nominate a conservative) and if he won't back Prop. 75, what's the point? On second thought, it would better if he got out of the way, for he's done a lousy job and everything he touches is poison. If he campaigns actively for his measures, people will vote NO. Mind you, they agree they're good ideas but they don't trust him to change things. He's no longer a reformer; in people's eyes Arnold has become a part of the liberal Sacramento establishment and that's why his poll numbers have hit rock bottom. As Daniel Weintraub says, Arnold has become the problem and not the solution.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

When I think of... when Hew calls himself a "center-right conservative" is somebody traveling down the center line as much time as it is humanly possible, and then SUDDENLY, to keep from becoming road kill, yanks the steering wheel full tilt to the right in a skreeching 90 degree turn that would flip any SUV except an original HUMMER!!!

If Hew Hewitless is a conservative, I'll eat my hat!!! In order to be a consistent, considerate conservative, one must be anchored in the founder's philosophy of anchored constitutionalism grown out of a Judeao/Christian belief system. Otherwise, what the heck is one trying to conserve, if it ain't America's most exceptional traditions, customs and CULTURE!!!

The rest of the danged world is only worth short visits, by comparison... Let's be honest about it!!!

Things would have been worse under Davis, yes, but the blowback might have been enoguh to trigger statewide realignment.

Hogwash, Hewitt. The recall *was* the realignment or as best as we could muster in the Democrat paradise of CA. That more has not been done to support Arnold, that his first year was "squandered" in trying to play mr nice bipartisan... he was a totally unprepared for the insular culture of legislature and how nasty the unions would get. That the GOP vets didn't HELP him and educate him and guide him until he got up to speed is SHAMEFUL. He singlehandedly offered the GOP a golden opportunity to reform CA by getting elected. All I see is tearing him down for being too environmentalist friendly, for not being a McClintock clone and never any credit for his efforts which have the CA economy rolling along again with a less business-adverse climate, NO NEW TAXES, reversed the car tax, killed illegal alien driver's licenses, boldly supported the Minute Men while Bush called them vigilantes, saved 3-strikes, is servicing the debt early and with his reforms taking the fight to the people. Look you, and Hewitt and others around CA *MUST* support Arnold's package in November or we all might as well just cash out on our home equity windfalls and retreat to other states. This special election is the Alamo, people. This is SERIOUS. It's the next step forward. He's not perfect but we must STOP with the negativity, the "what have you done for us lately" pettiness.

He's been able to accomplish more than Bill Simon would've. Or McClintock. Unfortunately, I believe he's all but lost the advantages he had. Much of that is due to our unwillingness to support him and the brain-damaged screw-ups he's been handed like GOP legislator authoring a plank of Arnold's reform agenda which could be spun into making him into the enemy of firefighter widows for crying out loud! And don't think his withdrawing that proposition has made it go away. There are union goon ads *right now* on radio and TV still beating that drum to make Arnold the most hated politician in the state. The mainstream media isn't being fair and the right wing media is taking its ball and going home like the spoiled brats they are in each losing election cycle.

Get on the reform agenda train or get out of California because if Arnold fails, the state will not be recoverable for sound policy for at least a generation, if not lost for good.