David Frum had no comment

Michelle Malkin is out of patience with California's governor:

Arnold Schwarzenegger was so preoccupied with lecturing the national GOP about the need to “rebrand” itself and move left that he forgot to mind California’s own business.

Today, his desperate tax-and-spend ballot measures are expected to all go down in flames at the polls. Tea Party activists of all political stripes have lambasted the deceptive initiatives. The intellectually and financially bankrupt state GOP is in full meltdown, having poured $650,000 into Schwarzenegger’s coffers to promote the phony spending cap measure before the state party waffled, then turned around and voted to oppose it and the other tax hikes.

California's budget mess casts an interesting light on the debate over the GOP. Ah-nuld was the epitome of the resercon ideal: a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Yet, once in office, he was not eager to battle for smaller government, less spending, or less regulation.

That seems to be true of many FC/SL Republicans. They are happy to bash the Religious Right or NRA; they bask in the MSM praise for their courage. In the end they never fight that hard for conservative economic ideas.

Oh, they might utter the occasional bromide about reducing taxes or shrinking government. Rarely do they lead the charge to roll back specific government programs.

That is why i suspect that the FC/SL position is just the coward's way-station on the road to surrender. It is a way to avoid the tough fights while claiming a conservatism they do not really possess.