This is just came over the wire: President Bush "edged into California’s turbulent recall campaign today, saying that movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger would make a good governor.

White House officials have taken pains to stress that Bush will stay out of the recall campaign against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, and Bush asserted that ’the people of California will sort all this out.’

But he acknowledged that he was closely watching the campaign unfold."

The fact that Bush came out with a form of an endorsement is significant. He sees something that could be very good, and almost certainly will be better than what currently exists (including a GOP governor in the largest state). The short of it is that--in response to Eastman and Alt--while I understand that AS is not a conservative, etc., it is also clear to me that he will energize all kinds of voters who normally don’t get energized and who, even good guys like McClintock, have not yet energized. As someone said AS is now a phenomenon, and we have fallen into a different mode of politics (ala Jesse Ventura at his start) that we can’t stop, but perhaps we can affect. I think he will be elected because he is running against the establishment (in this case the Democrats) and because there is nothing to lose by having him go in and try to clean the place out. Will he clean house? Probably not, of course. Yet, the attempt could be worthy. And, if he is well advised and very smart, it could have a long lasting effect. After all, it is not as though Republicans, conservatives, or otherwise, have done so well in California lately (read, they have been completely ineffective). We will have to see how he talks about some issues. So far, he is being very smart. I’m impressed, and it has (almost) nothing to do with the fact that this appealing immigrant may try to teach something to the natives.

And see this liberal op-ed in the Chicago-Sun Times beating up on folks who don’t like liberal movie stars opining on everything under the sun, and yet think that the AS phenomenon is a good thing. Amusing and heartening.