You wanna know what really, really blew me away? How far Arnie distanced himself from the far right during the SotS speech. I was expecting him to move left, but he did about everything he could to throw it into the face's of the ilk.
I'm not so sure about this.
I did witness some fantastic work being done between and by Republicans during Total Recall. Prop 54, Ward Connerly's init, took a great ton of money away from the "liberal establishment" by which they could have used to fight Arnold/Tom. Prop 54 lost, it got slammed with soooo much "democrat, liberal" money. Which of course, makes clear that the Dems have TOO much money in the system -- which they can hide under, say, Union Labels while claiming they love "campaign finance reform". pffft.
I know what you mean by using the word "comforting". I couldn't believe what I was reading and was subjected to, when I was first put through their organized, jointed "drill."