SCHWARZENEGGER

I see that a big Schwarzenegger campaign donor is funding ads that will call for a constitutional amendment to allow foreign-born citizens to run for president. You know what? I'm not sure this would be a terrible thing for the Democrats.

If the amendment effort gets some traction, the religious conservatives, who are obviously feeling their oats right now, might block it, thus creating a rift between themselves and voters who are favorably disposed to Schwarzenegger. Or, if the amendment passes and Schwarzenegger runs, religious conservatives might sabotage his campaign the way McCain's was sabotaged in 2000. If that happens, I very much doubt that Schwarzenegger will make nice, as McCain did -- he really might be seriously and publicly pissed off, with nothing to lose from lashing out (politics, after all, isn't his life). That would be delightfully divisive, just as the GOP gears up for a general-election campaign.

I also wonder what having Schwarzenegger in the race could do to the presidential hopes of Rudy Giuliani -- without Schwarzenegger, Giuliani will have a monopoly on favorable coverage from the "liberal media" on the coasts, whereas a Schwarzenegger candidacy will give us dueling media darlings.

I'm afraid of Giuliani because I think he could easily slip away on a "retreat" with a prominent right-wing priest sometime in '06 or '07 and emerge with a conveniently new attitude about abortion, gay rights, and stem cells; if that happens, he might be able to win red states and blue states in a general election. But it might not happen if he loses primary votes to even-more-macho man Schwarzenegger. Is this how we'd get an opponent like beatable dullard Bill Frist? Who knows, but I'd say maybe.