Well, phil, as somebody who actually lives in California, it looks to me that Arnie is turning out be a lightweight. He marched into office with an outsider's unrealistic expectations about the power he'd wield and in fact ran on a platform of noncooperation--he was going to clean up Sacramento and rub the Democrats' noses in it, by cracky! As always happens, he's now discovering the hard way that politics requires compromise to get anything done. I expect the final judgment about Ahnold's term in office will be lots of sizzle, but very little steak.

Phil, as a conservative, don't you believe in Federalism and states' rights?

the liberal CA psyche...Arnold has been far more effective combating ultra-liberals in his state than MA gov Mitt Romney

Dude, it's our state, and if we want to be predominantly liberals and have our state government run the place according to our principles, that's damn well our privilege. You rightwing carpetbaggers can just take a hike.

Then there's Dubya...one of the enduring mysteries about the guy is why he's supported by people whose beliefs he obviously disdains. Particularly Libertarians (cue Tom). Fiscal responsibility? What's that? Minimal government? Not on Dubya's watch! About the only area in which he's true to his rhetoric is being pro-big-business and pro-wealthy straight down the line.

Which raises the disturbing subject of the way that Republicans have managed to expand their paradoxical coalition of strange bedfellows. Workers and farmers and "the little guy" sharing a political party with big business? What????

Actually, it's not that mysterious: The new additions to the Republican "family" are social conservatives drawn by the Republicans' relentless pushing of their hot button issues. At the same time, Republican rhetoric has managed to completely expunge discussion of traditional economic issues. The substantive economic issues that used to define Democrat and Republican are now rhetorically dismissed as "class warfare".

But have the social conservatives not noticed, after more than a decade of that rhetoric, that after the election they never get the goodies they were promised? Roe v. Wade is still on the books, bills like "Defense of Marriage" are introduced with much noise and fanfare, then die quietly. The Supreme Court still refuses to throw out separation of church and state by allowing religious displays in public buildings and prayer in the schools. After much grandstanding by rightwing politicians, Terry Schiavo still was taken off life-support. Heard anything from the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives lately?

I'm seriously interested in hearing from conservatives about this, less so than liberals who already get it. How do you folk manage to go on supporting a President and a party who continually betray you? Is it nothing more than the fact that they're not Democrats?