Back to this again for just a moment, in light of Arnold!'s ENTJ personality, I think you and the legion of Arnold! supporters on FR are projecting your hopes on a relative unknown and untried quantity (in terms of political track record and experience). Sure, life would be wonderful if we could all just get together and BELIEVE that Arnold! actually *is* what he is so obviously trying to project himself as.
But what if ... we wake up the day after Oct. 7, and suddenly, "my audit team opened the books, and things are much worse than we thought, so we need to declare a fiscal emergency and the only way we can handle this crisis is to raise taxes"? Come on, everyone here has seen Arnold duck hard questions, debates, pledge signing, and so on-- in addition to his social liberalism and relatively wild personal lifestyle.
You wanna know the truth? The truth is that neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has a good notion of what Arnold! is going to do if/when he is elected, in contrast to McC's 25 year history of being on message and on target.
We folks that actually live here in California don't need a "rock star" for a governor. We need a guy with a proven track record of fiscal conservativism; a technician who can deal effectively with the legislature and won't pull any tricks. The recall has split the Demos wide open, pitting Busta against Davis and vice versa. They are like bugs placed on their backsides, their legs flailing in the air and not gaining any traction; ripe for the squishing. Any single Repub. of nominal stature or more can take them down with ease, by getting face time from solid party backing, and then pounding the message to the people.
Life is not without risk but I would rather term this an opportunity, and one not to be missed.
Sorry for the length... we now return the forum and this thread to it's regular pro-Arnold! frequency... ;-)