Some folks here need to take a powder.
One of the things that has led to the collapse of the Bustamante campaign was his inability to deal forthrightly with the issue of tribal swag in his campaign. Busty is tanking. McClintock is staying in precisely because he thinks he can come in second and give himself a big boost to confront Boxer.
Arnold has dealt forthrightly with this issue, and has confronted it head on. I will bet you that the Davis people had some stuff on Arnold and fed it to the Times. The LAT, just to be fair, had to do its own legwork, but the Davis people pointed them in the right direction.
That's how I think this started, but I don't believe that this is going to affect the race. Why?
My friend in La Crescenta, Adam, got his car tax statement today. It's tripled. It's one of the reasons he's moving to Arizona (he's taking his guns with him, too). That's what people care about, not whether Arnold groped Linda Hamilton (which he didn't, but I'm just using an example). I say again, people will care about their bills in the privacy of the voting booth. Women especially, since they tend to handle the household money.
Most of the time, people vote their pocketbooks. This election is a pocketbook election. It's not about abortion. It's not about Grayout's dirty tricks. It's not about Arnold's stance on guns. It's about money. Period.
Be Seeing You,
Chris