Even there, he wasn't good at doing it, just talking about it.

One of CA's problems is the deregulation of electric power led to an unprecidented raping of the public and the largest consumer, the state.:(

Native Californian here. Darrell Issa is my Representative in Congress. Sorry, I need to give him is full name: Darrell "Former Teenaged Car Thief and Millionaire Automobile Security Company President" Issa.

It is my not very important opinion that Issa, a failed US Senator candidate, wanted Davis' job and set about financing his recall, as others here posted. I would not be surprised at all if the vast - VAST - majority of signatures on the petitions came from Santa Barbara, Orange and San Diego counties, all of whom are very conservative areas and portions of two of those are represented by Congressman Car Thief himself.

The California Republican Party had a golden opportunity in Richard Riordan last election, but instead they opted for a more extreme candidate - Bill Simon - who quickly proved the basics of campaigning were beyond him.

On the other hand, if Gray Davis wants to do what's best for California, all he'd need to do is resign, making Bustamente the governor.

He might in fact hang on until the night before the election and then if the numbers are against him, quit and say, "Thank Darrell Issa - tell him to pay off the special election's cost. I'm outta here!"

But I somehow doubt it.

Arz may be able to shed more light on this, but IIRC, the way California set up dereg is what hurt them more than anything. I found this CNN article that touches on it.

My understanding is that part of the anger with Davis is that he "hid" how bad the budget was until after his re-election. On Bill Maher Friday, Davis attributed that to his budget director, who was in charge of the number-crunching.

Which brings us to the cost of this election: The original number I heard Davis throw out was $30-35 million. Now it could apparently run $60 million plus.

Is that budget director still in charge out there?

Another poll today showed support to recall at 64%, and Arnie winning the after-election with 44%. Even though polls suck, those are wild numbers out of the box.

I like the way the recall monkey wrenches the system. The party bosses (read state bosses) wield little power and a popular candidate can slide through... of course the compressed time schedule means a popular nut can get by as well, not that the press does much of a job of identifying nuts. Despite the body building career, Arnie doesn't strike me as a nut, maybe just a little misguided. ;)

I wonder if the genie is out of the bottle out there? Will a series of governors face this? Davis may be a special case, he is easy to hate. If this country had an organized third party this would have been a great opportunity.

Jesse Ventura on NBC's Today this morning (Here's a preview for our friends in the mountain and pacific time zones...I'm semi-paraphrasing here):

--The recall is a joke
--Time took that comment out of my open letter in the magazine
--Arnold needs to surround himself with smart people
--I will not endorse anyone running in the two major parties
--I almost got Herb Brooks to run as a Reform Party candidate for Congress

But at the time of the announcement of the numbers the accusation was also one of "Oh, sure, he's making the numbers sound really bad, but you watch, in 6 months or a year's time he'll come back and say, 'Guess what! The numbers are not so bad afterall! What a great governor I am!'" So, there was no way anyone could have won on that topic.

Which a lot of people who's political philosophy requires fiscal responsibiliy as the number one principle say "Eh, it's not so much." Which to me sounds more like, "It's not so much if we can have ARNIE in office!"

That's what I was trying to point out earlier as to why the voters seemed to be reved up. A chance to do something with one trip to the polls as opposed to bucking the party machines.

I learned something today and want to pass it on since I now look like a dope a little bit with some of the stuff I've written here.

I learned that if Davis resigns the recall happens anyway. I guess that means that we vote on recalling whoever is in office as governor on the day of the recall election, not "Gray Davis, Governor of the State of California."

How is it that you can vote "no" on the recall, but still select a candidate?

You know, sycamore, I've given up trying to figure this thing out.

I'm either voting for the porn star or Gary Coleman.

You can't vote "no" but still select a candidate.

Yes, you can.

A voter may vote "yes" or "no" or make no mark on the first question and any single vote made in the second question will still be counted. (Source)

Voters who reject the recall may still choose a successor to Davis on the ballot. But Davis’s name will not appear among the candidates listed. (Source)

Of course, If a majority vote “no” on the first question, the rest of the ballot is irrelevant. (Same MSNBC article as above)

Touché. You're still ugly.