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Reagan speech writer Peter Robinson privides some race to replace analysis, based on his informal polling of National Review Online readers. A snippet:

Friday I asked California conservatives to let me know whether Arnold Schwarzenegger's news conference last Wednesday made them more or less inclined to support Der Arnold. I got dozens of emails [..] and I just spent an absorbing hour wading through them. The findings? One was predictable, the other startling.

In the you-should-have-known department, my correspondents support Arnold by an overwhelming three-to-one.

The surprise? The reluctance with which most of them do so ..

And this:

"If McClintock can only convince conservatives that he has a chance of winning, support for Arnold could evaporate."

A couple problems with this. A good deal of the conservative political elite is already on board with Schwarzenegger. Second, most of these folks won't ever be convinced that McClintock has a chance of winning -- even if somehow he does.

Polling shows that "social conservatives" who take the position seriously enough to effect their vote on Schwarzenegger make up hardly a third of the Republican base -- i.e. they aren't even a majority among conservatives. Schwarzenegger has effectively reached emotional home with voters on the issues of taxes and business -- as focus groups in Riverside establish. The key areas were McClintock has an advantage over Schwarzenegger is on knowledge and to a lesser extent seriousness. McClintock has proven himself as a master of the budget and as a reliable combatant against the enemy of the citizen -- taxes. Schwarzenegger can only go on trust in these areas -- but here Schwarzenegger's believable emotion on these issues, and his forceful declared desire to take the reigns of leadership, somehow trump McClintock. And Schwarzenegger already is working with some of the best talent in the state on these problems, as his economic summit made clear. McClintock has helped lead a recall movement, but he's not had much room to provide leadership in Sacramento (where anti-tax and spend forces are incredibly weak), and he doesn't register on the passion and conviction scale as a public figure in the way Schwarzenegger can.