PRESTOPUNDIT -- A Good Blog at a Great Price. Guaranteed.

What will a winning coalition look like in the race for Govern of California? -- California Insider provides an analysis.

Weintraub figures that a winning Schwarzenegger coalition would include 70% of the Republican vote. If that's on target, it looks to me at this point like Arnold Schwarzenegger will not be the next Governor of California. Schwarzenegger has bizarrely chosen a path which is alienating to the great middle class majority of Republican and independent voters. He begins his unannounced campaign for Governor with a speech celebrating the 25 year anniversary of Proposition 13 before the anti-tax Club of Growth. He then announces his candidacy as a movement to bring "the people" back to Sacramento. But what is is first formal move as a candidate? Well, his first move is to put a man as far removed from the people as one can imagine -- and a complete amateur at that -- in charge of tax and budget policy. Warren Buffett -- a man for whom paying taxes is like tipping the waitress at Dairy Queen. Oh, and this is also a man rather famously in favor of both increased tax rates and increased government spending. Middle class voters could only ask, "What's the message Arnold?" It was all a train wreck waiting to happen.