Arnold! Arnold! Arnold! ... Cruz?

With all the talk about the Recallinator this past week you would think that Arnold had a mortal lock on winning the governorship if Davis is recalled. Not so fast:

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.

It's beginning to look more and more like Davis will be recalled (its up to 58% now in the same poll, but there is still time for Davis to turn it around). But the question of who will succeed Davis is nowhere as sure a thing as all the media coverage would suggest. Not everyone is as enamored of celebrity politicians as is our political press corps.