I posted my question to blog.DeanForAmerica.com: Should Dr. Dean mobilize in support of Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante's bid for California Governor? Here are some excerpts from a very long thread.

Pro +

dyeworks: Arnie winning could help Bush win California next year. Anyone who think voting for Arnold will not have consequences needs to look a little closer at the ramifications. 

Denise: Fellow Californians - Don't you think we should declare California to be an "Un-natural Disaster" area and ask the Dean Team to head west to give us some moral support?????

Nancy Richardson: Fact check: HOWARD DEAN and all the Democratic Candidates have already endorsed NO on the Recall.
  I don't think the Bustamante fallback vote has official endorsement yet, however it only makes sense that Democrats unite behind Bustamante just in case.
  While the media enjoys the novelty of the Swartzennegger Freak Show and Traveling circus during this weeks news cycle, Dean supporters should at least attempt to rally behind legally elected targets of the Bush administration, lest this Rove ploy wash up in your state.

SD: I'm in favor of getting Dean volunteers fighting against the recall in California.
    Those saying we should shy away because Arnold will win are missing the point. 
    First of all, they may be wrong. I don't think Arnold is certain to win. He has some real crap in his past. He had a movie scene where he pushed some woman's face into a toilet, and then he did an interview afterwards where he asked "how often do you get to do that in real life?". Can you imagine that interview in a TV ad.
    Second, it's important to take the fight to Bush and Rove (they are orchestrating Arnold's campaign) everywhere it can be taken. As the Texas ad blurb said, "anytime, anywhere". Dean is going to have to pull out all the stops on his volunteers nationwide next summer. California is a good place to turn them loose earlier and see what works.
    Dean has more volunteers on the ground than all the other candidates put together. He's not using them enough. Sure, they do stuff like the Dean Corps, which helps the hunger and poverty that Bush has saddled us with, but those problems are the symptom, not the cause, the cause being GOP policies. And DFA organizes clever, imaginative operations like the letter writing campaigns. But a volunteer corps this size is good for more than subtlety--it's big enough for use as a blunt instrument, flyering, tabling, campaigning door to door and explaining to CA voters why the recall is not just about the governor's office, it's an attack on democracy itself and must be fought as a battle for democracy (not just for Davis).
    Win or lose, a large Dean effort in California will show Dean is a team player for the dems, that he can unleash massive campaign energy by snapping his fingers (and not just grunt work, a lot of the meetupers are out-of-work professionals with time on their hands and the skill and experience to get stuff done) and is a force to be reckoned with. It will boost the fighting spirit of the whole national campaign, like the TX ads did. It will help Dean with the CA primaries, especially since Davis will be heavily indebted to Dean. And it will help beat Bush next fall.

Con —

 SF Bay voter: About offically supporting the NO on Recall in California. I am not sure Dean should get involved. He could be putting his credibility on the line if Arnold ends up as goveronor. And on the perverse side, there are advantages to Arnold winning. The democratically controlled Assembly and Senate will block him at every turn. Come election time next November it will be the Republican governor's fault that California is in a mess. I live here and think Arnold as governor will be the worst thing that could possibly happen to our state, but maybe the Democrats will be able to find some positive in it.

Dean Supporter:  Dean definitely should not issue a statement of support for the recall or anyone in it in California. The reason: Arnold is going to win that race, so Dean backing anyone else is a losing proposition any way you look at it.
    By the way, Arnold winning is not necessarily a bad thing. Try to remember all of his contributions to charities of the years, I think this shows his social responsibility side. He also knows how to run a business, which could be very good for California. People don't realize that Arnold was a millionaire from running several successful businesses long before he became a movie star.

lisa in san diego: I agree Arnold is not a two-headed beast breathing fire -- he has done a lot of philanthropic work -- but sometimes, the quiet, unassuming beasts are the ones you have to watch out for. His staff is made up of old Pete Wilson staffers. Remember prop 187, passed but later declared unconstitutional? Arnold voted for it, and Pete Wilson spearheaded it. It would deny social services to illegal immigrants. Also, scuttlebutt is that Rove/Bush et. al. are also behind the recall and Arnold's running. So don't believe FOR A SECOND that he will be a benign force in California. He would do Rove's bidding and we do NOT want that...

Tim Sheldon:  We need to work very hard to reach the 450,000 goal...our daily numbers do not add up to us reaching that by Sept. 30. The campaign has addressed this issue, but it is up to we the volunteers to make it happen. Everyone needs to sign up 20 people or more, I fear that we will miss this goal at a time that is critical to the campaign, just two weeks before the AFL makes its endorsment.

Dean Supporter: Can someone post a link to back up these claims that Rove is behind Arnold's campaign? What I found searching the internet is this Shields column, for example, which describes how a recall in California followed by the election of Arnold would actually be a nightmare for Rove.

jon in ohio: I'd stay far, far away from the CA election if I was Dr. Dean. You'd hate to back a loser, and once that circus is over, everyone is going to want nothing to do with the people who strongly associated themselves with the circus. The prize we're eyeing comes in 2004.

JenInSC: I think Dean himself should stay as far away from the California recall as possible. Dean volunteers could of course mobilize using communication lines established among themselves, but should not imply any endorsement BY Dean of any candidate or effort. It could be brought up, SPUN, and used against him later on when the election's over.
    I feel sorry for Californians having to live through this annoying political situation, but from folks I talk to here, it's seen as a California struggle and not a national issue. Here in South Carolina, we face our own struggle for the SC Democratic Party to raise enough money to hold our primary on Feb. 3, but we don't expect Dean or anyone in another state to help bail us out of it. It's pretty much our problem, and going to be up to us to fix it. Just my 2 cents.

Erika in ATL: I don't think we have a whole lot of time and energy to spend in California. 2004 Will be here before we know it.

Back to me: Despite the risks, I think it will be excellent for the Dean campaign to lead instead of follow. You have muscle car. Take her out for a spin. - Phil

via rc3, I agree with Nick Denton's analysis on How to beat Bush:

The Democratic candidate for president should appropriate the traditional Republican values of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility.

The Dean campaign should back Cruz Bustamante for California Governor.

1. Party solidarity. Supporting the Democratic slate (No Recall + Bustamante) will improve the chances for California to vote blue in 2004. Remember, this is the state that brought you Nixon and Reagan. Defend your strongholds.  
2. Dean has the one team that can deliver. Dean has the only functional democratic grass roots organization in the state. Local groups are already walking precincts to register voters for 2004. But the California race is in 7 weeks, not enough time for Davis or Bustamante to raise their own money or build their own supporters.
3. It will sharpen the Dean organization. This sprint can be a laboratory for every campaigning idea the Dean team can dream up. Think of it as an out of town tryout, a chance to work out bugs in the system.  

When use get power, you get more. I've been going to Dean meetups for a while and this would absolutely galvanize the diehards and rally the undecideds.

Poetry for a Monday morn arriving on a sea of public anxiety, despair, frustration and rejection.

Where the Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection:
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. 

— Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.