Here is a Give Up story if there's ever been one.

You may remember, Schwarzenegger was having hell in Blue California. His voter referendums all went belly up, his approval ratings tanked, he was being protested by teachers and nurses and cute little puppies. It was bad.

Then, about a year ago he fired his Republican staff and hired a new Democratic chief-of-staff. He ditched his right-wing policy ideas and now has embraced ideas the Democratic legislature will get behind. Now, with this new effort to restrict global warming, he's proven his little blue state can shape the nation's policies, just by being a powerful economy that is willing to enact intelligent regulation. And here's the money quote.

"We have begun a bold new era of environmental protection here in California that will change the course of history," the Republican governor said.

The measure passed by the Democratic-led Legislature last month caps the state's man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The most populous U.S. state seeks to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of about 25 percent.

The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is also a direct challenge to the Bush administration -- which has opposed mandatory caps to fight climate change -- by a state that has often led the way nationally in new environmental standards.

President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the 160-nation Kyoto Protocol in 2001, saying forced reductions in greenhouse gases would damage the economy and unfairly excluded developing nations.

"Other countries like India and China, Brazil and Mexico will join us when they see all the great work that we are doing," Schwarzenegger said. "Also our federal government will follow us -- trust me."

I agree, to hell with federal control (at least under this administration), Democrats should be as or more focused on running the states of California and New York, and forcing reforms nationwide by virtue of the power of these states' industry.