September 03, 2003
Arnold may have just lost the election.
AP Story: "Schwarzenegger planned to skip Wednesday's debate and instead deliver a speech to supporters and students at California State University in Long Beach... Schwarzenegger has agreed to participate in only one debate... for which questions will be provided ahead of time." More...
Lost? No way. He might be saving this election.
Arnold has no benefit in getting into a debate. All he will end up doing is making his own Poland mistake like Ford did -- and it would come back to haunt him.
The people who will be voting for Arnold don't care about specifics -- they probably don't read newspapers. It's like all those fools that voted for Reagan -- polls showed that they disagreed with Ronnie on most issues, but they liked him. They didn't care about issues.
Arnold is smart dodging the debates in the same way that incumbents almost always try to dodge debates.
I don't think he'll win -- I think Bustamante will take the plurality -- but Arnold has a lot better chance of winning if he lays low.