"During the American Revolution, the Iroquois tribes sided with the British and one British general call on the Indians for help. A Mohawk chief, called Hendrick by the English, showed up with two or three hundred of his soldiers and assessed the military situation. He then turned to the English general and said, "What are we here for? If we are here to fight, we are too few. If we are here to die, we are too many."

If you are going to win, you will always have too few volunteers, and if you are going to lose, you will have wasted the time of too many people."

— from How To Win a Local Election, by Judge Lawrence Grey

For the last five days, I've placed four phone calls to the Schwarzenegger campaign office — ready to volunteer some time and hopefully get a real feel for what this guy stands for. Since reading Esquire's cover story on Arnold, I find myself curious about the candidate but left without any more information.

How will he fix 'Kal-i-phonia'? Will he form a posse and go after the thugs of PG&E and Enron for robbing us blind? Can you really fix the car tax by giving every one in California a Hummer? Does he really think that posing with Maria all the time is going to make the womanizing problem go away? Will legislation really prevent Skynet from becoming self aware?

Thus the primary reason to volunteer: information gathering.

After days of calling I finally got through to the campaign office and was immediately told that they have already had many 'requests' to volunteer. Oh and they wouldn't 'guarantee' that I will be selected to volunteer.

"Can't guarantee?"

What?

Never mind that they missed the first rule of taking volunteers, which is to ask for a contribution, but to be smug towards the volunteer at the same time? And since when does any politician have so much credibility with the public that he or she can just turn away Joe Citizen Volunteer? Especially when the election is in less than two months away!

So I will have to wait, like everyone else, to learn what Arnold is all about. I can only hope that Jay gives him enough time on the Tonight Show to get through his entire platform.