With less than a week to go before the Very Special Election, it's time to ponder the state's relationship with the Governor. Cause it's looking like the magic has gone from the relationship. As Woody Allen would say, what we got on our hands is a dead shark.

Polls out now are saying that Arnie has achieved such a level of popularity that he's actually bringing down his measures. In other words, his unpopular measures are less unpopular than he is and so the more he tries to campaign for them, the worse they'll wind up doing. If Arnie were a musician right now, he'd be Fred Durst.

How bad has it gotten? Well, Arnie has pretty much given up on raising money because the money ain't flowing in like it used to. So he's actually going out and talking to people. Real people too. The hope is that by appearing at town halls across the state, he'll get free publicity on local TV news, something we're pretty sure wasn't in the original game plan.

He's also striking completely different tones lately, more contrite and apologetic, even doing something that very few politicians every do unless they're totally desperate-- say they've made mistakes. In fact, in a recent interview with A.P., Arnie whined that he's being walloped by the unions who are out to destroy him. We may be mistaken, but in reading the interview, Arnie kind of comes off like a Girlie Man.

Granted, as Arnie's people have pointed out, even Mother Theresa couldn't survive the barrage of negative ads out there ("Mother Theresa says she has mainstream values but only hangs out with beggars, thieves, and lepers.") And granted, unions do have a choke hold on the legislature. But still. Maybe insulting nurses might not have been the swiftest move.

Or maybe thinking politics was easy might not have been the swiftest move.