Arnold Trouncing Angelides in California

A new LA Times poll has nothing but good news for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger:

With a little more than five weeks remaining until the November 7th California gubernatorial election, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a commanding lead, 50% to 33%, over his challenger, Democrat Phil Angelides, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll. Schwarzenegger has come out of the gate after the June primary with momentum on his side. Angelides’ message doesn’t seem to connect with many of the voters.

More than three-quarters of Schwarzenegger voters said they are definitely going to vote for him, while only two-thirds of Angelides voters are as sure. In addition to the certainty of each candidates’ voters, Angelides came out of the June primary against his opponent, Controller Steve Westly, bruised and with hardly any money left to start his general election campaign. The incumbent Schwarzenegger, on the
other hand, was unopposed and sat on the sidelines watching the Democrats attack each other. In fact, early campaign ads by Schwarzenegger used the negative words of Westly to besmirch his opponent. In most of the issues that the poll measured pitting Schwarzenegger against Angelides, the governor either outpaced his opponent or split the issue (i.e., education, immigration, budget and the environment).

TV viewers out here are being treated to a flight of commercials from the California Democratic Committee linking Arnold with George Bush and telling voters to "call Arnold Schwarzenegger and tell him to stop acting like George Bush". Does anyone actually do that?

The unions who managed to stop his ballot propositions last year are also running ads, and what is most interesting to me is that neither ad campaign ever mentions the Dem candidate, Phil Angelides. They realize the guy's a stiff and their only hope at defeating Arnold is to talk him down rather than talk Angelides up. The Dems made a big mistake choosing him over Steve Westly.