4. The problems with big money are overrated as a cause of disaffection from politics. But, undoubtedly, big money elevates the stakes, what with varied big givers -- business, labor and about 33 trillion interest groups -- all but forcing Congress to assume and exercise more power over people's lives and property.

None of the foregoing is strictly apposite to California, whose problems with a bumbling, deceptive governor are of another order. It is possible all the same to see uninhibited California as a volcano, like others, trembling ominously over the political fraternity's bad deeds. It is probable that the Terminator's very lack of political exposure boosts his prospects. A new CNN/USA poll has 52 percent saying he would do a better job than any career politician would.

You can't tell. Maybe he would. Gray Davis is a career politician. The budgetary hole he dug the state into is a mere $38 billion deep. Could the Terminator do worse?

Alternatively, as Minnesota voters showed when they picked a professional wrestler for governor, there is psychic satisfaction in images: a guy in trunks mussing up the malefactors as impolitely as possible.

Cleaning up the town used to require -- in image terms -- a visit from the Lone Ranger. We're moving to specialists in smash-'em-up-and-rub-their-faces-in-it. Call it progress or not, it shows where things could be going.