In Time this week, Andrew Sullivan writes that Arnold could represent the future of politics because he's a "synthesis" and a "truce" between the socially accepting left and the fiscally conservative right. "That kind of complicated but real candidate has been my dream for most of my adult life."

Well Andrew might be able to snooze happily, but Arnold's just the beginning of our nightmares. Synthesis? What synthesis? He just told everybody what they wanted to hear. He far from the first candidate to combine socially liberal and fiscally conservative positions--whatever happened to Dick Riordan? Oh yeah--he got his clock cleaned by the right wingers during the primary. It took Arnie's celebrity value and brand recognition to blow past the party insider bullshit that keeps most regular politicians beholden to their ideological bases. When you have no ideology, that's not such a big problem. And that's the new formula.

The Democrats aren't so stupid as to not see this happening (well... they are pretty stupid...) On the Presidential level, their attempt at this type of candidate (and their attempt to head Howard Dean off) is... Wes Clark. Hmm. Good luck with that. On the state level, there's rumor that Rob Reiner is gearing up to run for Gov in 2006. The Terminator vs. Meathead. Great.