The way Republicans are plowing through a front-runner of the month on presidential candidates is just another reminder of how fickle many American voters can be and how easily they can be manipulated by emotion and personality.

Michele Bachmann had her moment in the sun, then came the swaggering Rick Perry, followed by Herman Cain with "9-9-9" and the angry professor, Newt Gingrich. Who's next in the "anybody-but-Mitt-Romney" sweepstakes? Ron Paul, Rick Santorum?

Jon Huntsman still registers below the margin of error in the polls. And whatever happened to Sarah Palin? Despite the fact she may be the most unqualified person ever to appear on a national ticket, she still has a significant following and would no doubt move into the top tier should she reconsider a candidacy.

California's most recent experience with voter fickleness and being seduced by a booming personality occurred in 2003 when voters ousted Democrat Gray Davis in a recall election and installed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Governor's Office.

The Davis recall occurred after I had retired as an active journalist, and friends who were operating a polling place out of their garage asked if I would like to volunteer to work at the polls.

That was something off-limits to me while I was covering politics, so I jumped at the chance to see democracy up close and personal. It became clear to me very early that day that The Terminator probably would be our next governor.

The reason: Young men who had never voted before were lined up when the polls opened to cast their ballots for their action hero. Some of them had no idea how to cast a ballot, and I'm reasonably certain that none of them had the vaguest idea about Schwarzenegger's politics. But they could all quote from his tough-guy movies.

So how did that work out for us? Schwarzenegger won re-election in 2006 against a weak Democratic candidate, Phil Angelides, but folded his cigar tent and slunk home four years later with little to show for his time in Sacramento.

He fought continuously with the Legislature, left the state in worse shape than he found it and was divorced by his wife, Maria Shriver, after the disclosure that he had fathered a child with his family's housekeeper.

"I'll be back," he is famously quoted from one of his movies. I don't think so. "Hasta la vista, baby."

It was reminiscent of Minnesota's misadventure with professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, who was elected governor on a reform platform in 1998 but left office after one politically disastrous term, blaming the media on his way out the door.

Republicans may be no more fickle and easily manipulated when it comes to choosing their candidates than Democrats, but the 2012 White House campaign is giving GOP voters more chances than usual to grasp at a nicely wrapped present only to find an empty box.

Politicians, of course, are well aware of how easily voters can be motivated by a little charm, real or faked, and superficial appeals. That's why they trade jokes with Jay Leno and David Letterman, show up on "Saturday Night Live" and grasp for the quick sound bite or the catchy slogan in lieu of substance.

The fact that Schwarzenegger was considered gubernatorial material in the first place defies all reason. The fact he chose "The Tonight Show" to announce his candidacy should have been a tipoff. The joke was on us.

The same goes for some of those in the GOP field. But they still have their true believers, and political egos know no boundaries. Even so, the more they talk, the more it becomes apparent that they shouldn't even be allowed out in public without a guide, let alone anywhere near the Oval Office.

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William Endicott is a former deputy managing editor of The Bee.

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