Schwarzenegger announced his intentions on "The Tonight Show" Wednesday, apparently surprising both host Jay Leno and his own closest advisors, who had been told that Schwarzenegger had decided not to run. With his announcement -- and Feinstein's earlier in the day -- Schwarzenegger immediately became the frontrunner. Radio talk-show callers have declared themselves "amped" about Arnie's candidacy, apparently hoping that his on-screen tough-guy persona means he can kick some serious Sacramento butt.

By Friday, the national press was so focused on the suddenly star-studded recall that Bush couldn't stay out of it any longer. When reporters asked him about Schwarzenegger at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, the president said he wouldn't want to arm-wrestle Arnie but thought he'd make a "good governor." At about the same time, Matt Drudge was posting a new photograph on his Web site: a black and white shot of a beaming, youthful Arnie, his head straddled by the legs of a topless hottie.

Conservative Christians see a photo like that and feel "a sense of separation," says Lafferty. "There are good, solid prominent Republicans who are well-suited to run for governor," he said. "This guy clearly is not that serious."

That's not the way many Republicans see it, of course. While a Democrat with a record like Schwarzenegger's would be deemed all but un-American by Karl Rove and his friends at Fox, many of the Republicans who see hope in Schwarzenegger are willing to accept the sacrilege that comes with his stardom. "The Republican Party is not monolithic," said Jonathan Wilcox, who was the spokesman for Issa's campaign. Pointing to pro-choice Republicans who have served as governors and antiabortion Democrats who have served in the House, Wilcox says parties do what they have to do in order to win elections.

And for Republicans in California right now, the most important thing is winning the race to replace Davis. Anyone -- or, at least, any Republican -- would be better than the incumbent governor, they say, even if that anyone isn't the Republican they'd choose if they thought they had a choice. "Republicans want to win more than anything now," said Jo Ellen Allen, spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Orange County. "It's not just winning to win, but you can't do anything if you don't win."

Arguments like that don't fly with some Christian conservatives. Lori Waters, executive director of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, rejected any "relativistic" view based on Schwarzenegger's electability. "He may be a better fiscal conservative than Gray Davis but that doesn't mean that the Eagle Forum has to put its name on [his campaign]," Waters told Salon Monday. "We are pretty firm in supporting social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, but you've got to be both."

It's what comes after that matters, counters Allen. If Schwarzenegger wins, she says, he will surround himself with more traditional Republican aides and appointees -- perhaps like the team of aides and advisors to former Gov. Pete Wilson that Schwarzenegger has hired for his campaign -- who will understand the interests of the party's more conservative members. And then, when the next legislative election comes, Schwarzenegger can push voters to send him Republican legislators with whom he can work.

But that only happens if Arnie wins. And to win, he is going to have to prove to voters that he's serious -- a credible leader, not just a comic book action hero -- and he is going to have to survive the intense scrutiny that comes with a political campaign. That's where even forgiving Republicans like Allen begin to express doubts. They have heard rumors about Schwarzenegger, and the whispers make them nervous.

In March 2001, Premiere magazine ran a feature titled "Arnold the Barbarian" which chronicled allegations of what the magazine called his "boorish" sexual behavior. According to the magazine, the actor has a penchant for groping at the breasts of women who are not his wife -- including a fellow star and crew member during the filming of "Terminator 2" in 1991 and three different female talk-show hosts he encountered during a single day of hyping a film in late 2000.

The Premiere story also quoted an unnamed source who claimed to have walked in on Schwarzenegger performing oral sex on a woman in his trailer during the filming of the 1996 film "Eraser." "When we opened the door to his trailer, Arnold was giving oral sex to a woman," Premiere quoted the source as saying. "He looked up and, with that accent, said very slowly, 'Eating is not cheating.'"

Schwarzenegger has denied the allegations, but not always in ways most becoming to a would-be politician. He told the Weekly Standard last year, for instance, that he was not so "stupid" as to be caught "eating a chick in the living room" of his trailer.

While Republicans may be able to suck it up when it comes to Schwarzenegger's political views, they may have a harder time with the allegations, and the actor's attitude about them, particularly if it becomes clear that any hi-jinks occurred in the recent past. "In the last few years, has he been doing anything like that?" asked Chuck Devore, a conservative Republican currently running for the California Assembly. "If he has, he will run into some trouble."

Allen agreed. "I don't know whether he has done these things," she said. "I believe about half of what I read. I would hope that if it's true, it's behavior that's a long time ago and that it has stopped." Allen began to compare the allegations against Schwarzenegger to the ones that led House Republicans to impeach Bill Clinton. She caught herself before going too far. "One can make a distinction of location, of the White House and an aide under your jurisdiction and control. But it's still inappropriate behavior."

Davis' political team circulated the Premiere article to reporters in 2002 when it appeared that Schwarzenegger was thinking about running for governor. While Schwarzenegger told Jay Leno last week that he expects his opponents will use such stories against him now that he's in the recall race, at least one prominent Democrat has publicly warned Davis against running a "puke" campaign to save himself. Thus, California Democratic Party spokesman Bob Mulholland is downplaying the dirt for now -- sort of.

"We're not getting into it," Mulholland told Salon last week. "In any campaign, you have to decide where your resources are going to go. We'll let the tabloids do the work. We'll leave it to them, but we'll add some gasoline to the fire."

In the meantime, the White House will have to tread carefully into the recall race. While Schwarzenegger is the frontrunner now, the field has been set for only a few days, and things could change quickly as the Republican contenders begin to cannibalize support from one another. Already, the knives are out: In a Web site put up so fast that most of it is unfinished, the operative who directed the Rescue California recall drive is warning Californians against the "sexist playboy." Bush may want to wait until the picture sorts itself out, before tying himself too tightly to any one candidate. The Bush team got burned the last time it involved itself in California politics, and many believe Rove and company will be wary about jumping in too soon this time. After Bush said that Schwarzenegger would be a good governor Friday, a White House aide reportedly took pains to make it clear that the statement wasn't an official endorsement.

"It sounds to me like he's testing the waters," Devore said of Bush's seemingly off-the-cuff comments about Schwarzenegger. "The next thing you're going to see is an incremental gauging of the opinions of the party faithful, a cautious observation of the campaign trail -- is this guy capable of rising to the top?"

No doubt, the White House will also be watching to see how the rumors and allegations about Schwarzenegger resolve themselves -- and how they play with constituencies important to the president's reelection in 2004. Says Mulholland: "They don't want to be standing next to him if another Premiere article is coming out."

A related question, of course, is whether Schwarzenegger wants to be standing too closely to Bush in California. Schwarzenegger aides did not return calls for comment on this story. But at least some political observers wonder whether Schwarzenegger will be better off if Bush stays out of the recall race entirely; Bush's presence could remind Democrats of the recall's partisan birth and drive them to vote it down. "I think a Bush endorsement could be a kiss of death in California because it's a Democratic state," former Clinton strategist Dick Morris told Salon Monday. "The more the partisan theme underscores the race, the worse it will be for Schwarzenegger."

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