Earlier this week it emerged that Arnold planned to visit the St. Francis Yacht Club for a party hosted by a European yacht manufacturer. This seemed pretty ironic given the successful Yacht Party ad campaign launched by the Courage Campaign this week, attacking the Republicans as a party favoring yacht owners over everyone else in California.

Amusingly, our cowardly governor did not even show up, as Josh Richman explains:

I waited, and waited, and waited, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't show today at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco's Marina District for an event unveiling a hybrid pleasure-boat engine.

Two of his cabinet secretaries -- California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Linda Adams and California Resources Agency Secretary Mike Chrisman -- were there to sign a memorandum of understanding with Austrian Consul General Martin Weiss to have the state cooperate with the governor's native nation on environmental protection initiatives. Adams said the governor "could not be more proud that we are taking this action today;" Chrisman said the governor "certainly recognizes the importance of this relationship."

Then the three officials joined Michael Frauscher, managing director of Austrian boatmaker Frauscher, and Steyr Motors CEO Rudolph Mandorfer for a cruise beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on a 25-foot Frauscher 757 St. Tropez motoryacht powered by the world's first electric-diesel hybrid marine engine -- California Chris-Craft will be the world's first distributor to offer the new Frauscher hybrids -- before returning to the dock for sips of chilled sparkling wine. A gloriously beautiful day on the bay, to be sure.

But although Frauscher's public relations firm had insisted Wednesday, Thursday and through much of this morning that Schwarzenegger had been confirmed to attend -- and that the event had been moved from Thursday to Friday to accommodate his schedule -- there was no governor. He was in San Francisco, apparently meeting with a certain newspaper's editorial board, but he didn't make the yacht event (though many reporters did, with most splitting as soon as it appeared he wouldn't show).

So -- no questions about the "yacht tax" hubbub, just eco-friendly yachts.

Richman updates his post saying that while Arnold's press officials claiming "we never were committed to doing this, we were never planning to do this," neither did they respond to Richman's queries about the event earlier in the week. It sounds as if they couldn't get out of this Yacht party quickly enough.

So let's get this straight - Arnold avoided a public appearance because the Courage Campaign, along with the California Nurses Association and Assemblymember Anthony Portantino, helped put an ad on the airwaves calling attention to the Republicans' Yacht Party nature?

David Dayen was right - Arnold IS a coward. And the California netroots, along with progressive groups and politicians like CNA and Portantino, have the power to shame Arnold away from a good party.