Usually, California seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to social trends. However, it appears that the voters of California are following the lead of Minnesota voters here in figuring out that maybe you shouldn't elect an actor from shitty action movies governor.

According to a new poll of likely voters, only 37% of those polled considered themselves likely to re-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. 47% say they are likely to not vote for him. A year ago, a similar poll found 56% of voters saying they were likely to vote to re-elect him.

The bright spot for Arnie here, and the caveat for anyone planning an "Arnie's Gone!" party, is that when he is matched up against his likely challengers, the race is still fairly close.

And so it's likely that as candidates like Angelides and Westly start their campaigns and become more familiar to voters, they might be more likely to defeat him.

This all comes after Arnie's attempt to "reform" California government through several ballot initiatives was bitch-slapped by the voters. It's a little stunning to see how quickly Arnie's political star seems to have faded. It seems like only yesterday the possibility of amending the Constitution to allow people not born in the United States to be President was being discussed, largely to open the door for an Arnie run for the White House.

I suppose the lesson here is that as much as we love the idea of someone who's not a "career politician" getting elected, it often doesn't work as well as we'd like. Maybe the thing we should do is elect politicians who'll actually do a decent job, not lame actors whose platforms consist of quotes from their crappy movies.