Rodney

He's a pro-choice, more-or-less gay-friendly Republican with a deep interest in the welfare of children. He was more than partly responsible for the success of a proposition a couple of years ago that earmarks X percent of the education budget (something like $400 million) for after-school programs in schools, to keep the kiddies off the street and somewhat help with their education. And it won, largely because he actively campaigned for it.

The problem with propositions like this is that they lock in funding for a particular program and guarantee that it can't be touched until the end of time, no matter what the emergency, no matter how dire. So about a year later the California budget implodes and they're laying off teachers statewide and class sizes are increasing, it might be a good idea to sacrifice after-school program funding to keep basic school services intact. But the funding can't be touched.

I consider Arnold to be sincere but politically naive. If he's elected, I expect him to make good-intentioned moves that go bad because he's not experienced enough to see just how complicated a "simple" solution can turn out to be. And since he's a lot less hard-core right wing than the leadership of the legislature's GOP, and of course more conservative than the democratic majority, once in office he's going to get blindsided no matter which way he turns. It'd be interesting, no doubt.