"However, making that radical his chief of staff is a deal breaker for me."
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I had the same reaction, until I cooled off and started to consider the alternatives, at which point I am looking at it that Arnold may have dropped in the overall assessment scale, say from 85 to 60, but any Dem who would get elected has a value of some -500 and dropping, because in today's environment, they would claim they have a justification to raise taxes signifantly, probably even getting read of Prop. 13 protection and we would really rue the day, when they got in. And we narrowly dodged the bullet, I think Arnold actually vetoed that socialized medicine bill the Dems passed.
The real problem, as I see it, can't be fixed. We can't unring the recall bell. So we're stuck with what we have, and there's much more that will play out before the next election.