We have got to call out Arnold for his dishonest campaign style. During the recall, he simply “acted” like a leader, allowing himself to become an avatar of whatever people thought he would be.

Just imagine how devestating a Democratic campaign could be by twisting Arnold’s original campaign against him. I can see the commercials now…

“Arnold is good at acting like a governor, but it’s time for some real leadership in California.”

By the time he shows up for the “Super Bowl of debates” he’ll be toast.

The way I see it, despite Arnold’s increasingly obvious lack of fitness for the Job, the Opposition (Hopefully that’s the Dems) will stillneed to successfully do at least 2 things in order to beat him next year:

1) As mentioned before, actually run an interesting candidate. If we run another bland policy wonk, or another Davis-esque sycophant, we’re cooked. We need someone passionate, interesting, and charming. Oh, and without the air of corruption that follows so many CA Dem bigwigs these days.

2) We have got to call out Arnold for his dishonest campaign style. During the recall, he simply “acted” like a leader, allowing himself to become an avatar of whatever people thought he would be. That’s good politics, but he also studiously avoided any instance in whcih he might be successfully challenged.

The most annoying bit was his insisitance that he wouldn’t debate unless he had the questions in advance. At first the other candidates attempted to call him out, and it looked as though theyr weren’t going to debate him. The moment at which I knew that Arnold was going to win was when all the other candidates capitulated to his demand, and agreed to debate him. That automatically ceded the argument to him, and gave him the appearance of momentum.

What’s worse, nearly all of his public appearances were scripted solo stops at places like malls. Appearing at malls was particularly effective – he gave the appearance of meeting “the people” in public. Unfortunately, malls are not public places, they’re private businesses with the illusion of public space. The owners of the malls could legally exclude other canddiates and anyone who might protest or otherwise as tough questions.

If we let him do this crap again, and if we fail to run a candidate that isn’t some mobbed up corrupt party stooge (Which seems to be the only people capable of rising through the California Democratic Party), we wil lose. And deservedly so.

My point is that I refuse to underestimate the ability of people to stupidly vote for the famous guy, regardless of his record.

Any ideas on how to win? Disagreements with mine?