"ARNOLD DEFEATS CRUZ"

Well, that honeymoon ended fast. GO CRUZ!!!...

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 15 -- Before the first television ads have aired, the race to succeed California Gov. Gray Davis (D) if he is recalled came down to just two men, Republican action star Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante, according to a nonpartisan statewide poll to be released Saturday.

The California Field Poll found 25 percent of registered voters opted for Bustamante followed by 22 percent for Schwarzenegger.

The other candidates trailed in single digits: State Sen. Tom McClintock took 9 percent; businessman Bill Simon won 8 percent; former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth received 5 percent; all three are Republicans. Independent and columnist Arianna Huffington got 4 percent, and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo received 2 percent.

My emphasis, of course.

As you may know, the No-on-recall, yes-on-Bustamante effort has its own site up and running. McClintock and Simon are too righteous about the purity of their respective conservative backgrounds to drop out (as is Ueberroth about his relative "grownup-ness" compared to Ahh-nuld), and the electorate is increasingly less likely to support Schwarzy the more they learn about him beyond the silver screen. That Cali GOP rifle is trained squarely on the elephant's foot. Whoops!

Ok, I've had a looooong, long day, it's bedtime.