With the announcement that Democrat Phil Angelides is going to try and make the war in Iraq a major issue, the desultory campaign for governor of California just took a big step towards knocking the scintillating Gray Davis-Bill Simon shootout of 2002 off its pedestal of having been the state's worst major political campaign of all time.
So far, we've already been treated to a series of commercials where Angelides tries to paint Arnold Schwarzenegger as George W. Bush II, a tactic that I can't imagine is going to have any traction. California voters aren't that dumb, and if anything the ads just make clear that Angelides has little or nothing to offer the state that doesn't appear on the wish list of one of the state's major public employee unions.
And it's not as if Governor Schwarzenegger is setting the world on fire with his vision for a new California. He's obviously a smart guy, and there is something to be said for having an optimist in office, but he's already made it painfully clear that he's unwilling to buck the Republican establishment, a move that's absolutely essential to enacting any kind of reform to the way the state handles key issues such as education funding, taxes, and immigration.
At this juncture, it's hard to imagine that the campaign could get any worse, but there's almost two months left, so I'm sure they'll try.
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