He hasn't had the experience of running statewide elections, much less winning them. When you come from a district with 11 percent Republicans where the whole ball game is winning the Democratic primary, you don't develop the instincts you need for statewide politics.

In both cases, he did it with very strong bipartisan backing. But they wrongly and foolishly extrapolated from the recall and the Prop. 57-58 and 66 campaigns that this guy was a masterful campaigner who could sell ice to Eskimos and could sell pork pies in a synagogue.

That's why Arnold has loaded up his campaign with a bunch of Bush-Cheney operatives. They really understand how to appeal to voters in the bluest state in America.

The timing was not accidental. There's more to come.

Phil better take notice. If he wants to try to replicate the Roberti campaign of 1994, he's up against a team that knows how to fight back. I've been accused of a lot of things, but not being willing to fight back isn't one of them.

Only a handful of Democrats know either one of the candidates. Both of them are starting virtually from scratch.