Westly ran a filthy campaign and couldn't raise campaign money from the public. That's a good indicator of his acceptability to the public.

Message: Tell the truth...tell it LOUD, Tell it as funny as possible in spots, tell it every hour of every day...and work 24/7. And make sure you keep the voter in mind not yourself.

On California: does anyone know how two congressional write-in efforts worked? Jim Lopez (R) in CA-20 and Mark Hull-Richter (D) in CA-42. Should I put Costa and Miller down as unopposed or did the write-ins get enough votes?

This post confuses me a bit.  I think when you consider the dynamics of a Democratic California primary, the fact that Angelides won rather unconvincingly is a pretty big warning sign for November. I think the default position should be that the more progressive candidate should win big, and that didn't happen.  

Whatever his strengths, Angelides isn't going to win over a lot of voters with his personality, and that puts him in tough position against a guy like Arnold.  Also, I think that when voters don't warm to a candidate's personality, negative attack ads are more likely to stick.  

I think Arnold will be all sunny all the time, while independent expenditure groups will sling tons of mud at Angelides.  

I do not beleive that Westly ran a "filthy" campaign. Garry South ran an incompetent campaign for Westly, I know because I saw it up close as I worked on this campaign. My guess is that South pursued this course of action because of Angelides' reputation as a vicious campaigner, evidenced by past campaigns. The assumption was that Angelides would go negatve and the first negative ad I saw in this race (on TV) was one of  Angelides attacking Westly.
Also, Westly, unlike Angelides, was self-funded and was not relying on "money from the public"  as a factor, he basically bankrolled his campaign. unlike Angelides who received $8 million dollars in campaign assist from a wealthy Sacramento Real Estate Developer and no significant frassroots money (as is patently obvious now)
Angelides had the backing of the Unions and the Dem Party Establishment (Feinstein, Boxer, et al). He was their pre-selected choice. Unfortunetly Westly's campaign had no on-the-ground grassroots network, something South was unfamiliar with. I believe South thought this race could be won in a media blitz and that it would be obvious that Westly was the progressive candidate and more charismatic candidate versus the stogy machine backed hack.

In the end, the whole thing was a pity. To date, I have seen not one Angelides Ad, Bumpersticker or Yard sign, and he's down as much as double-digits in the polls. The mistakes of the Westly campaign are now obvious as now are the mistakes of the Angelides campaign.

If each campaign had spent its time and money attacking the general election opponent,instead of each other, things might have turned out differently.
Yes, I will hold my nose and vote for Phil, and I don't think it will be a blow-out as Arnie has had a hard time getting close to 50% in any poll. I just hope that Arnie does not have enough traction to drag McClintock in with him. The latest Field Poll showed the LG race narrowing to a few percentage points after a large Garamendi lead in the initial poll. (I'd still call this for Garamendi though).