FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC

GRAY DAVIS--THE GOVERNOR WHO CRIED WOLF: Last week we speculated that Bill Clinton's various sex scandals had probably desensitized voters in California--where Clinton was and remains incredibly popular--to allegations about Arnold Schwarzenegger's serial groping. That's probably true to some extent. But in the aftermath of Arnold's victory, it's looking more and more like Gray Davis's penchant for slash and burn political tactics were the bigger factor here. As this New York Times story suggests, most voters were apparently so used to interpreting any attack on a Davis opponent as both emanating from Davis himself and as fictitious, exaggerated, or otherwise unfair, that by the time Davis stumbled onto an opponent with some truly disqualifying character flaws--flaws which the Davis camp wasn't even the first to point out--voters were all too ready to chalk it up to another malicious Davis smear-job. Go figure.