The folks at Steve Westly's campaign for governor appear to be absolutely giddy over today's Field Poll, which shows Westly with an 11-point edge over Phil Angelides for the Democratic nomination.

In an e-mail sent to his online supporters today, Westly called it "a happy day for our campaign." He also suggested it was time to start thinking about the general election (more on that later).

The results must match both campaigns' internal polling. Westly obviously suspected such a result was forthcoming; not only did he have the e-mail written and ready to go, but when I talked to him briefly in Los Angeles on Wednesday, he anxiously asked, "Any word on whether the Field Poll will be out today?" Clearly, both candidates suspected what was coming. Later that day, Angelides described himself to me as "the underdog" and dismissed polls at this point in the campaign as being "way early... We're just in the first few minutes of an NBA game."

(This, by the way, on the morning after the Sacramento Kings had led Phoenix by 17 points at half time, only to be blown out by the Suns in the second half.)

In his e-mail, Westly told supporters there were "three things you can do to help." No. 1 was to recruit five friends to join in the campaign because, "We want our campaign to grow so that we'll be able to take on Arnold in November."

Hmmm. What happened to that election in June?