I was really going to leave the California election alone, but — someone at Knight-Ridder apparently had the bright idea of sending reporters out to interview Iraqi bodybuilders about it. How can I pass that up?

“For me as a bodybuilder and coach, Arnold is like a very big book. His way of training, his experience, we follow every step of his career,” said Saif Abdul Razak Hussein, 23, who spends most days at the Rasheed Center for Bodybuilding on al Maamoon Street. “It’s good to see someone like him, someone like us, running a big state.”

Practically every Iraqi knows Arnold is governor-elect of California. One gym changed its name to The Arnold Classic after Schwarzenegger won.

Like many Americans, Iraqis are divided about whether he has the experience to pull a state the size of Iraq out of its economic slump.

But most think he’ll do a better job running California than their own interim Governing Council will do managing the challenges of rebuilding postwar Iraq. . . .

“Before, I had a good opinion of Arnold, but right now my opinion has completely changed. When he came here to speak to soldiers I was disappointed, because I thought he agreed with what the American soldiers did,“ said Amir Foaad Abed, 19.. . . .

Still, Abed said Arnold would do a good job as governor because he was elected. “Because he’s famous, he’s an actor, he’s rich, so people elected him for those reasons. So he will do a good job.”

Can’t argue with logic like that. Maybe we can win over the hearts and minds of the Afghanis by screening Red Scorpion for them and electing Dolph Lundgren to something or other. At least Lundgren was a Fulbright scholar.