They're calling Wesley Clark the flavor of the month out in Hollywood:

"There's a lot of buzz about General Clark now," Mr. Spahn said. "He combines in one package the attributes of several other candidates. He's got the Southern base of John Edwards, the outsider status of Howard Dean and a military record that trumps John Kerry."

But, it may not last:

He said, "We're sort of at the pre-honeymoon" stage in terms of Hollywood's falling in love with General Clark, adding: "He's an interesting guy. He's on everyone's radar now. He's the candidate most appealing — at the moment."

In other presidential candidate news, Dick Gephardt will not get labor's early endorsement. The AFL-CIO has decided to delay endorsing a candidate:

...a group of pragmatic union presidents, noting that Mr. Gephardt was not doing well in the polls or in fund-raising, warned that if the federation endorsed him and he flopped in primaries and caucuses, then labor would look weak and out of touch.

Other news: John Edwards has taken the lead in South Carolina. And Gary Hart has endorsed John Kerry.

We can't commend Arianna Huffington for quitting the California race:

"I am dropping out of the race so I can campaign full time between now and Oct. 7 against the recall and against Arnold Schwarzenegger," she said in a telephone interview this afternoon. She publicly announced her decision in an appearance on the "Larry King Live" show on CNN Tuesday night.

What about the absentee voters who already cast their vote for her? They are now voiceless if the recall succeeds. They wasted their vote.

When we were at a seminar in California a few weeks ago, we were suprised to learn that quite a few of the defenders there had cast absentee votes for Arianna as a replacement candidate after voting "no" on recall.

If the recall succeeds, their vote may as well have been for Arnold. Arianna knew she couldn't win when she began her campaign. If she was going to drop out, she should have done it before the absentee voters were allowed to cast their vote.

She gets no credit in our book. In fact, she gets a failing grade.

Update: Arianna drops out. She vehemently opposes the recall but does not endorse anyone as a replacement. She just wants to see Arnold defeated. Californians, please, vote no on recall.

Bump and Update: Arianna will announce her decision tonight on Larry King Live.

Arianna Huffington is scheduled to decide today whether to quit the recall race and announce her opposition to the recall and support for Bustamante. We think it's a noble move, but probably too little, too late.

Wesley Clark told a college audience in New Hampshire Friday that he'd relieve Rumsfeld of his command. Others (Dean, Kerry) have called on Rumsfeld to resign, but this is the first we've seen that a major candidate would give Rumsfeld the boot.

Gen. Wesley Clark, told a New Hampshire audience Friday night he had only fired one person in his life. On Saturday he said he wanted to fire a second person: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

When asked at a house party on the Seacoast about what he would do in Iraq if elected president today, he was met with applause when he said, "First of all I would change the Secretary of Defense. Then I would go to the commanders of the ground and go to Iraq myself personally and I would develop an exit strategy that gives us a success and lets us downsize our commitment there."

Besides Rumsfeld, Clark also criticized Bush's National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice for her views of the world and then U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay, also a Republican, for his vote on a measure involving Kosovo.

In Washington Saturday, Clark said Americans are embarrassed by Bush.

Speaking after an event in Washington at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual conference, Clark, 58, told reporters that the American people are "really embarrassed" by the administration's leadership.

Update: A CNN/USA Today poll released today shows the recall is likely to succeed and Arnold is the most popular replacement candidate.

***********
Sunday's Los Angeles Times editorial Why the Recall Is Wrong is worth reading -- it devotes a section to each of the major candidates, and explains why each falls short of deserving the job of Governor. In fact, the Times says, every one of them would be worse than Davis.

The Times takes the same position as we have taken for months now: No endorsement of a replacement candidate.

Some snippets:

We received this email a little while ago, and think the writer makes a good point:

Dear TalkLeft:

I would like to encourage TalkLeft to give accelerated coverage to the possibility of election fraud and vote manipulation through touch screen voting machines and also internet voting, including military internet voting. Far too few people know about this potentially massive problem and I think it is a very good idea for all of us who are concerned about this issue to bring it into wide public view before the primaries begin.

Here's where you can get the info:

David Neiwert at Orcinus

Bev Harris at Black Box Voting (Diebold shut the site down but their activism page is up with lots of info.)

Kos at Daily Kos.

Jeanne D'Arc at Body and Soul.

Salon: An Open Invitation to Election Fraud

Slashdot

Law Prof Rick Haasen's Election Law

Here is the full transcript of today's debate among Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination. Wesley Clark participated. The Washington Post reports that Kerry and Gephardt went after Dean and all the candidates avoided heavy criticism of Clark.

Al Sharpton, as always, provided the humor:

It was the feistiest of the trio of debates held so far. But it was also leavened with moments of humor, as when Al Sharpton described the field as "eight career politicians, an officer (pointing to Clark) and a gentleman (pointing to himself)."

As the laughter from the audience died down, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun added, "And a lady."

Good for her. We're glad Mosely Braun is in the race. She's smart, liberal, poised and experienced. She won't win, and likely doesn't expect to, but she at least can get the country used to the idea that a woman easily can be as effective as a man in the position of President. And who knows, maybe she will end up as the VP candiate. A Clark-Braun ticket or a Dean-Braun ticket could really be something.

Watching the California recall debate, we heard Cruz Bustamante give his ideas for balancing the budget: Increase cigarette and alcohol taxes and raise income taxes on the state's wealthiest 4%.

A smoker's tax hurts the poor. Cruz should come up with a new plan.

Arianna's attacks on Arnold's treatment of women were in poor taste and in our view, backfired.

Bustamante was good on health care for children of undocumented residents, but his delivery lacked passion.

For more on the recall debate: Live: The Arnold and Arianna Show

Based on this debate, we have to say we think if the recall succeeds, Arnold will win the Governor's race. We like Arnold, but our opinion remains the same: Vote no on recall.

A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows that Bush's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level ever--49%.

From the Marijuana Policy Project:

Two of the leading candidates -- former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and
U.S. Sen. John Kerry (MA) -- markedly improved their respective positions on medical marijuana. Dean agreed to impose a moratorium on the DEA's raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states that have reduced or eliminated criminal penalties for the medical use of marijuana. And Kerry said he would stop the raids entirely.

...U.S. Sen. John Edwards from North Carolina has been the primary target of our protests. He seems almost proud to have adopted the position that seriously ill people should be put in prison for following the advice of their physicians.

All of our hard work paid a huge dividend at a town hall meeting in Henniker on Saturday, September 20. MPP's New Hampshire project, Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana (GSMM), asked John Kerry, "Would you stop the raids, as president?" Kerry responded by saying simply, "Yes." This came one day after Howard Dean, in response to a GSMM question, pledged, "Will I do what Attorney General] Ashcroft is doing? No, absolutely not." GSMM then specifically asked, "You would stop the raids?" and Dean responded, "Yeah, I'm not going to do that, anyway." To read about these encounters in greater detail, please see our press release.

Good for Dean and Kerry....Edwards needs to catch up.

No surprise here, but it's official: The 9th Circuit has reinstated the California recall election. Head over to How Appealing for all the details.

You can read the full decision here.

Update: The ACLU says it won't appeal. The recall will go forward October 7.

A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows Gen. Wesley Clark tied with President Bush:

The CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll was conducted Sept. 19-21, beginning two days after Clark announced he would become the 10th Democratic candidate for the party's nomination.

Kerry and Lieberman also tied Bush, while Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt fell a little behind him. Bush's approval ratings aren't faring well either:

The president's job approval was 50 percent, with 47 percent disapproving. The public gave Bush high marks for having the personality and leadership qualities of a chief executive. But just over half, 51 percent, said they disagreed with the president on issues that matter most to them, while 46 percent agree.