OBLIGATORY CALIFORNIA RECALL POST: I don’t have very strong feelings about it, which is why I haven’t blogged on it all that much. I think that anybody is probably better than Davis, except maybe Bustamante. [Even Arianna Huffington? — Ed. Sadly, yes.]

The too-cleverly-contrarian pundit point is that this is like running for captain of the Titanic, and that an Arnold victory will be bad for the Republicans. Though too-clever, it may actually be true. Will Arnold, if he wins, be able to cut spending enough to balance the budget? I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it. (The really-too-clever contrarian pundit in me wants to predict that the recall will fail, just because that would be the most perverse outcome of all, and that seems, somehow, entirely fitting with the proceedings to date.)

If Arnold does wind up as Governor, he could do worse than look at Tennessee’s Democratic Governor, Phil Bredesen, who took over in a fiscal crisis that — while nowhere near California’s magnitude — was pretty serious. Bredesen has won respect from pretty nearly everyone by being honest, and doing what he said he’d do. Hey, it’s worth a try in California!

Internet Ronin has more thoughts, as well as a list of things to watch. And the Indepundit reminds us why Gray Davis is in this fix.

Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus, PrestoPundit, Calblog, and Daniel Weintraub are blogging up a storm, so I don’t have to!

I’ll close with this, my favorite photo from the recall.

UPDATE: The L.A. Weekly provides stunning evidence of the L.A. Times’ partisan hackery. This is yet another reason why campaign finance “reform” is a joke — this is effectively a huge secret campaign donation that just happens to be exempt from the law.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Robert Tagorda will be offering continuous coverage, too.