Sam Seaborn's got a new staff position.

Rob Lowe, who served as deputy communications director under Martin Sheen's President Bartlet on The West Wing, will be chief celebrity wrangler for Arnold Schwarzenegger's California gubernatorial campaign, the actor's publicist confirmed to E! Friday.

No word yet on Lowe's duties from Schwarzenegger himself. At the Running Man's headquarters, spokeswoman Karen Hanretty allowed that an announcement on campaign staff would be made in the "coming days"--perhaps about the same time Citizen Arnold, so far minus a platform, formally shares "his vision" for the state.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Schwarzenegger spouse Maria Shriver is lobbying for Lowe. The two are said to be longtime friends.

Lowe, like Shriver, is a Democrat. Schwarzenegger, much to the dismay of Rush Limbaugh, is a Republican.

Lowe, unlike Schwarzenegger, is a seasoned political hand. He manned a Kool-Aid stand for presidential candidate George McGovern in 1968; joined forces with Jane Fonda in 1986 to campaign in California for a clean-drinking water initiative; talked up Democratic White House hopeful Michael Dukakis in 1988; and, like all good Congress members, fell victim to a sex scandal in 1989.

The scandal stemmed from a videotaped hotel-room encounter with two female constituents, one of them under age, at the 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta.

Lowe's Bad Influence reputation waned with marriage and, later, his Emmy-nominated turn on The West Wing.

The 39-year-old Brat Pack alum left the NBC series midway through last season in a tiff over the size of his paycheck and/or the amount of his screen time. His character was dispatched to Orange County, California, to run for Congress.

Lowe's due back in prime time in September on the new NBC series, The Lyon's Dan, about Washington, D.C. lawyers.

In other election developments from TV-land:

Schwarzenegger opponents Gary Coleman and porn star Mary Carey are the first confirmed contestants for the Game Show Network's Who Wants to Be Governor of California? The Debating Game. The special, scheduled to air six days before the state's October 7 recall election, will be hosted by former MTV veejay Kennedy, who somehow failed mount her own candidacy. Three other players are yet to be culled from California's lengthy ballot.

Punster turned power broker Jay Leno has invited all 135 gubernatorial candidates to appear on his NBC show on September 22. "If you're running, if you're a legitimate candidate...we have 300 seats, we'll let everybody in," Leno said during Wednesday's Tonight Show monologue. Gary Coleman's rep has already RSVP'd him for that gig, too. Schwarzenegger used Leno's late-night show to launch his campaign on August 6.

An actual debate, minus buzzers, prizes and Jay Leno, has been scheduled for September 17 in lovely Sacramento, California. Candidates who, according to major polls, are likely to draw at least 10 percent of the vote will be invited. Recent tracking shows Schwarzenegger pulling at least 30 percent, making him the top contender to replace incumbent California Governor Gray Davis.

Nationwide, 31 percent of registered voters say they'd vote for the Conan the Barbarian star to be governor of their state, a new Fox News poll shows. But 43 percent of respondents say they wouldn't want to be governed by the action hero. The poll also shows that nearly half of all Americans, 47 percent, think the California recall is "silly."

Cable's Sci Fi Channel and F/X have sworn off Scharzenegger flicks for the duration of the campaign. While cable networks are not held to the federal equal-time law that compels broadcasters to, say, run a Gallagher special for every movie aired starring rival candidate Arnold, the companies are wary of potential legal challenges.

The Sci Fi's self-imposed ban will gut a Schwarzenegger triple feature (Conan the Destroyer, The Running Man and Terminator 2: Judgment Day) planned for August 24. Instead, the network will air arguably more appropriate fare: California disaster movies.

The Schwarzenegger camp has terminated an attempt by forces loyal to Gray Davis to siphon off votes from bad spellers. The Associated Press reports that Netizens logging on to "schwarzeneger.com" were taken, earlier in the week, to a pro-Davis Website. Citizen Arnold's campaign has since taken control of the url. If you spell Schwarzenegger the correct way, or the wrong, short-a-g way, you're taken to the Running Man's new site: JoinArnold.com.

G.O.P. supporter Schwarzenegger has contributed more money to Kennedy clan politicians, über-Democrats all, than to fellow Republican candidates, the Sentinel & Enterprise in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, reports. By way of explanation, Citizen Arnold is a Kennedy clan member himself by marriage--Maria Shriver is the daughter of Ethel Kennedy Shriver, sister of JFK, RFK and Senator Edward Kennedy.