Californium locuta est, Causa finita est

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is entering his reelection campaign $410,000 in debt, while his Democratic rivals and union foes are armed with more than $50 million.

He also continued supplementing his aides' government salaries by paying them additional sums in campaign money, according to campaign reports filed with the state Tuesday.

Schwarzenegger spent $8.2 million of his own money, and tens of millions more of his contributors' money, on his ill-fated special election effort to change state government. Altogether, his campaign cost more than $45 million, depleting his accounts.

Although his opponents spent almost $100 million to defeat the initiatives Schwarzenegger championed in the November vote, many of them emerged with hefty bank accounts.