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As many had predicted, the new governor elect was swept into office by less than 20% of the elgible voters. The combination of typical, lackluster, off-year election participation that attracted only 43.1% of the elgible voters and a small army of candidates allows the new governor elect to enter office with considerably less than a mandate of the majority.

The unmentionable bloc Posted: November 5, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. When Arnold Schwarzenegger captured half the vote in the 135-person California recall, pundits said he had found the lost key to Republican victory in a state the party has been losing for a decade. For Arnold had carried three in 10 Latino votes! A hard second look by UPI analyst Steve Sailer, however, shows this to be an urban myth. "Republicans performed strongly in the California recall," he writes, "because they did what Republicans must always do: earn lots of votes from that enormous but apparently unmentionable bloc...

<p>Ever since 1994, when California voters enacted Proposition 187 (a bill barring illegal immigrants from receiving many public services), leading Republicans around the country have shied away from saying anything critical about illegal immigration, viewing it as a political kiss of death.</p>

Recall Candidates: Some Perspective Two Weeks After the Campaign By LINDA RENAUD News Editor Of the three Palisadians who started out in the recall election, one said he'd never run again, another said he'd consider it, and the third dropped out less than three weeks into the race. While last year's gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon, 52, hit the campaign trail running, he dropped out, apparently, after polls indicated that he was not even garnering double-digit support in the campaign. Simon then endorsed governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since it was too late to have his name removed from the ballot, Simon...

<p>He was former Gov. Pete Wilson's closest aide for 28 years and helped steady Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign after it got off to a faltering start.</p> <p>Bob White, 61, who served as the campaign's chief of staff, is now playing a vital role in shaping Schwarzenegger's administration. If White's name doesn't register with the public, it's by design.</p>

The California recall election and its surrounding hoopla may have confirmed the suspicions of some people in other parts of the country that Californians are crazy. But not all Californians are crazy - just the most affluent and highly educated ones. Although the state as a whole voted to remove the disastrous Governor Gray Davis from office by 55 percent to 45 percent, he received a solid majority of support in most of the upscale northern California coastal counties. In San Mateo County, where the average home costs more than half a million dollars and the environmentalists reign supreme, keeping...

<p>California Democratic Party officials announced Tuesday that the state's fastest-growing voting bloc -- independents -- will be allowed to cast ballots in the party's March 2 presidential primary. Voters who "decline to state" a party or who register as some political affiliation other than the seven recognized parties in California will be eligible to choose the Democratic nominee for president next year.</p>

Ah, the omnipresent poll. The media punditocracy is addicted to using polls to tell us what "the American people feel" (never think) about everything from a president's so-called approval rating, to how a candidate's chances stack up against others in a race, to our "feelings" about various policy and social issues. Although the public has absolutely no way to evaluate the vast majority of polls for accuracy, most of us simply accept them as incontrovertible indicators of truth. Why? The answer probably is because we're told that polls are "scientific" since they use statistical-type analysis, and most of us tend...

The LA Times thought it was doing its job when it revealed the sordid past of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the public's response showed that they were not interested in the truth, writes Duncan Campbell Monday October 20, 2003The Guardian When the Los Angeles Times published a front-page story five days before the California gubernatorial election about six women who claimed that they had been groped by Arnold Schwarzenegger, it caused outrage. However, the outrage was directed not at the governor-to-be for his treatment of women but at the newspaper for daring to print the allegations, even though Schwarzenegger has acknowledged...

California's recall election was bad news for Democrats in more ways that one. Not only did Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger manage to take control of the statehouse, but both he and conservative Tom McClintock drew unprecedented support from key Democratic voting blocks. Nationwide, more than 90 percent of African-Americans voted for Al Gore in 2000. But two years later, according to a Zogby survey, 23 percent of black Californians backed a Republican in the recall race [17 percent for Arnold, 6 percent for McClintock.] Worse still for Dems, nearly 40 percent of Hispanics voted for either Arnold or McClintock, who garnered...

GOP officials don't like to talk about it, but they have become the dominant party. A FTER THE 1972 AND 1980 ELECTIONS, Republicans said political realignment across the country would soon make them the dominant party. It didn't happen. Now, despite highly favorable signs in the 2002 midterm elections and the California recall, Republicans fear a jinx. Realignment? they ask. What realignment? Matthew Dowd, President Bush's polling expert, notes heavy Republican turnout in 2002 and the recall, a splintering of the Democratic coalition, Republican gains among Latinos, and shrinking Democratic voter identification--all unmistakable signs of realignment. But he won't call...

October 17 - 23, 2003 Permanent War Dem boss ready for GOP 'bastards' by R. Scott Moxley The howls you heard saturday morning while driving through Buena Park? That was the sound of 50 Democratic activists meeting at a nearby AFL-CIO hall days after staggering Republican victories over Governor Gray Davis and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante.The meeting began, as California Democratic summits do, with complaints about conservative control of the media, stale coffee (with instant creamer), fond talk of Adlai Stevenson and infighting. One woman worried that union domination made it hard for the party to reach new voters....

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<p>The recall election that gave rise to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger held Californians' attention as few news events have the power to do, according to a new survey, reigniting a disengaged electorate's interest in politics. As Schwarzenegger enters office for the first time, the results released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California suggest the 56-year-old Republican movie star may well find voters responsive to his campaign promise to take priorities before them through the initiative process if he can't make headway with a divided Legislature.</p>

The Democratic spinners have been busy trying to put the best face possible on the landslide recall of Gray Davis and the impressive election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, but it's tough going. Maybe, they suggest, American voters are angry at all chief executives facing big budget deficits – in which case they may be ready to "recall" President Bush in 2004. And anyway, Schwarzenegger is far from being a typical Republican: He is pro-choice, pro-gay rights and pro-gun control. Save for the governorship, California is still solidly in Democratic hands: They control both houses of the legislature, hold both...

You gotta admire the way the media stayed on the Democrats' sinking California ship right to the very end. On the CNN website, even after Gray Davis had conceded, they were sticking to the loser's talking-points: "Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria..." CNN? Oh, that's that network with Larry King, who, like the Son of Sam, is a native of Brooklyn. Used to be owned by Ted Turner, who, like the Cincinnati Strangler, is a native of Cincinnati. Now part of Time Warner, founded by the Warner Brothers, the oldest of whom, Harry Warner, like many Auschwitz...

The press relied heavily on exit-poll results in analyzing the results of the California recall election. That exercise left some analysts, including me, a little confused because the two major exit polls didn’t always agree. Even as exit polling tried to recover from its Voter News Service (VNS) 2002 blotto hangover, there are reasons to remain suspicious of this genre of polling. First, it should be noted that since the polls are based on huge samples, the theoretical margin of sampling error for them should be quite small. The Edison Media Research poll, directed by longtime exit pollster Warren Mitofsky...

by Michael Barone Governor Arnold 10/16/03 The recall Of California Gov. Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to succeed him is, first of all, a repudiation of left-wing Democratic governance. A state that Al Gore carried 53 percent to 42 percent voted 55 percent to 45 percent to recall Davis. Schwarzenegger got more votes than "no" on recall and more votes than Davis did in 2002. Davis was first elected in 1998 on competence and as a centrist. But his mishandling of the electricity crisis called into question his competence, and his big budget deficits — caused by...

Desperate Dems no match for Arnie October 12, 2003 BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST You gotta admire the way the media stayed on the Demo-crats' sinking California ship right to the very end. On the CNN Web site, even after Gray Davis had conceded, they were sticking to the loser's talking-points: ''Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria . . .'' CNN? Oh, that's that network with Larry King, who, like the Son of Sam, is a native of Brooklyn. Used to be owned by Ted Turner, who, like the Cincinnati Strangler, is a native of Cincinnati. Now...

Democrats Drop the Lunch Pail By E.J. Dionne Jr. Tuesday, October 14, 2003; Page A23 [...]But here's the secret of the Democratic primaries: They are no longer dominated by millworkers and milkmen. Steadily, the Democratic Party is becoming the party of the educated upper middle class.Just look at last week's recall vote in California: The strongest opposition to tossing Democratic Gov. Gray Davis from office came from voters with postgraduate degrees. (Davis also appeared to do reasonably well among voters who did not graduate from high school -- part of the Democratic base that pollster Andy Kohut calls "the partisan...

Maybe it was the time that Gov. Gray Davis mocked Arnold Schwarzenegger's thick accent that did him in.A candidate for governor should at least know how to pronounce "California," Davis said on Sept. 6.To most non-Hispanics, it was a lame joke. To many California Hispanics, it was insulting."It showed Davis didn't know what state he was governor of," said Raul Damas, director of Latino Opinions, a research group. Whatever the reason, Hispanic voters were a key factor in Davis' historic defeat in the Oct. 7 recall election. And they helped turn Republican Schwarzenegger's victory over Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a...

<p>With the recall behind us, it is time to reflect on its positive lessons. The primary lesson has to do with the length of elections. During the summer, recall critics argued that the short election cycle would hurt voters. But they were wrong on several counts.</p>

Now that we've elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as our next governor, there is a lot of talk about how he'll reshape the Republican Party. But he might have a bigger impact on the Democratic Party. His 68-member transition team features many prominent Democrats -- who are being called "dinos" behind their back. No, not dinos as in dinosaurs -- a bad pun -- but as in Democrats in Name Only, a rip-off of what Republicans used to say about people like Schwarzenegger and those who don't care about the party's conservative stance on social issues like abortion, gay rights and gun...

For more than 20 years, identity politics have dominated thought, speech and sexuality, giving rise to what Celia Farber describes as an all-consuming beast eating anything and anyone in its sight. Did Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful campaign mark the beginning of the end for Political Correctness? If I call them the liberal elite you’ll think I’m a neo-con, and besides, I don’t think the root, Latin word liber (free), applies to most of them. For now, let’s call them "leftists," though they’re not really that either. Let’s call them the people whose nostrils automatically flared in horror upon learning that Arnold...

<p>Barring some unforeseen event, Gray Davis' last major acts as governor of California before handing over the office to Arnold Schwarzenegger were vetoing a batch of bills sent to him by the Legislature.</p> <p>Davis probably didn't intend those vetoes to be the lasting symbols of a governorship that is being short-circuited by voters, since none of the rejected measures was of earthshaking importance. But cumulatively, those vetoes encapsulated what confounded Californians about Davis and eventually alienated them. Davis came to be seen -- with ample reason -- as someone who was interested only in the matter of the moment, viewing it through a purely political prism and lacking any consistency or broader vision.</p>

Last month, the American Life League had launched an ad campaign via their project, "the Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church." Judie Brown, President of American Life League and had this to say: "As a native Californian, I'm saddened that the top three contenders - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cruz Bustamante and Gray Davis - are unabashedly campaigning on their "Catholic" heritage, while openly defying the Church's teachings on abortion-on-demand." The ad revealed the socially liberal candidates as "California's Unholy Trinity." Crusade Director Joseph Starrs called upon Cardinal Roger Mahony to "dispel the lie that a Catholic can be 'personally...

Student fees at the University of California rose 30 percent this year because of an economic crisis under the watch of outgoing Gov. Gray Davis. With state businesses leaving at an alarming rate, an energy debacle and a corrupt governor with overall incompetence, voters had seen enough Gray. And as Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged as the clear winner in this historic recall, California's ousting of Davis is not only good for the state, but good for UC students as well. UC needs a fiscally responsible executive who is willing to curb spending, ensuring funds intended for UC will not be used...

Before the election on Tuesday, which swept Gray Davis out of office, and Arnold Schwarzenegger into office, I collected some of the poll “predictions” about the Recall. As recently as Sunday, two days before the election, we were being told by news reports from all over the world that the Schwarzenegger campaign was “deeply troubled by claims he groped women and once praised Hitler.” The Guardian Unlimited of London told us “A Knight Ridder poll released late Saturday showed Schwarzenegger still leading among potential replacements for Davis in the October 7 recall election, with 36 percent support compared to 29...

Is there any good news for libertarianism in Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California? Not much, if the hope was to see the two major parties undermined in an electoral free-for-all. One of the fondest third-party wishes for the recall—and a critical selling point for voters disenchanted with both the Republicans and the Democrats—was that its 135-strong roster of candidates would open the field up to everybody, and possibly create a wild-card situation where a fringe ticket might actually win. Fat chance. Schwarzenegger's win dramatically demonstrated the immovability of the major parties, and the absolute hopelessness of third-party challengers....

| McClintock claims victory in his defeatBy Timm Herdt, October 8, 2003SACRAMENTO -- Saying his campaign "framed the issues upon which this contest was decided," state Sen. Tom McClintock on Tuesday claimed victory even as he was conceding defeat to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger. McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, was decidedly upbeat in defeat, even as early results showed that substantial numbers of his supporters decided at the end to board the Schwarzenegger bandwagon. Despite polls that showed McClintock to be the best-liked of all the major candidates, it appeared that McClintock would finish with about 11 percent of the vote --...

The California recall election is now history, and we've learned some lessons from this historic event. First and foremost, we've realized that it's OK for people in the media to mock the accent of Arnold Schwarzenegger by spelling out his name and state phonetically. Countless times, we've read the candidates names listed like this: "Bustamante, McClintock, Davis, and AH-NULD!" Sometimes they even write his state as "Kah-lee-fuah-nee-ah." Imagine for a second what would be happening if any other minority, ethnic group, or person with a speech impediment had their words written out how they talked, or had reporters mocking how...

Marin woman dubbed 'mother of the recall' Her San Francisco radio show ignited move to oust former Gov. Davis By Con Garretson It was the conversation heard around the state. The chairman of California's Republican Party was being interviewed on a KSFO talk radio show last January about the state's economic ills. Asked what could be done, he suggested an idea that had been bandied about privately among political insiders: attempt a recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Radio personality Melanie Morgan, who was working without her regular co-host that day, immediately lent her support to the idea and made it...

<p>Santa Monica -- Arnold Schwarzenegger's dramatic announcement on "The Tonight Show" Aug. 6 that he was running for governor of California was, to all appearances, a bolt out of the blue. Jay Leno gasped and the Tonight Show audience erupted in applause. Schwarzenegger's advisers insisted he had made the decision at the last minute.</p>

<p>A Nazi groper, running the fifth-largest economy on the planet? I mean this time you gotta see why the liberals are jumpin' mad! Nixon was one thing, with the hiring of the burglars and all to lift McGovern's secrets, and the bombing of Cambodia on the sly, and goofy, like when he'd shoot his arms straight up in the air like a giant V, I guess for victory (or maybe it was a big human Y, for Yes), but at least Tricky Dicky didn't pronounce it "Collifornia," and he didn't grab up a Kennedy woman for his own. No, this time it's worse. I saw the nude Arnold photos on Drudge. Nixon wouldn't even walk along the surf without wearing his suit and tie, and dress shoes.</p>

<p>President Bush has plenty to smile about today, looking at the results of the California recall vote. Then again, he must be very worried.</p> <p>True, Golden State voters not only prematurely ejected Democratic Governor Gray Davis but also gave action-movie hero Arnold Schwarzenegger a clear mandate to clean up the state's fiscal mess. Republicans are exhilarated that Davis, one of the most relentlessly negative of all American politicians, has been terminated by the electorate. National Democratic leaders are almost catatonic about the unfairness of it all and over what they see as the power of a vast right-wing conspiracy to overturn election results they don't like.</p>

Voter Revolt Goes On... The landslide victory of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California should have sent a clear message to state legislators: ''Quit the petty partisanship and get work done for the people.'' The recall passed by double digits and Arnold was elected over his Democrat opponent by 17 points – a massive margin. If that doesn’t give him a mandate, it’s not clear what would. Californians are expecting Arnold to usher in a fresh brand of politics that puts the people first. And they’re expecting that the Legislature will work with him. Unfortunately, many Democrat legislators have failed to hear...

"I came, I saw, I conquered" could well have been Arnold's secret campaign motto, for, indeed, the Terminator terminated, and California and the nation will never be the same again. Not since the tax-cutting revolution of Proposition 13 have the vibrations of a California earthquake reverberated so strongly across the nation. He Came Arnold entered the race on the deliciously succulent "Tonight Show." Would any other Hollywood star have done it differently? The Republicans had been fielding terrible candidates and had had a hard time connecting with voters. They couldn't get a foothold in a state that was voting more...

Los Angeles Daily News Was it an earthquake or simply a shock? By Arnold Steinberg Saturday, October 11, 2003 - Was Arnold Schwarzenegger's election seismic? Let's talk about what really happened. Voter turnout was hardly a record. Sure, it was high for a special election. But it was barely average for a general election. Despite intense media coverage and high public interest, voting remained largely a spectator sport. Is there, then, a mandate? And if so, for what? A key lieutenant for Arnold put it this way: The outcome was preordained. Not really, of course. What he meant was...

In the wake of California's recall election, the temptation to draw far-reaching conclusions is strong. Despite 11th-hour allegations against Republican Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, the final results were decisive. Schwarzenegger, a political novice and outsider, overcame accusations of sexual harassment, past drug use and alleged admiration for Adolf Hitler, and he did so while offering precious few specifics about what he will do as governor. He ducked all but the final debate among the major candidates, and he relied heavily on the so-called soft media, with appearances on Jay Leno's and Oprah Winfrey's shows. Does this mean that celebrities, immune from...

<p>What is it with us? How did the Bay Area become the odd man out in California politics?</p> <p>On Tuesday, while the rest of the state eagerly dumped Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Bay Area said no and not him.</p>

Khachigian was a senior adviser and strategist for President Reagan and California Governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson. He advised Darrell Issa's recall campaign before Issa dropped out. It wasn't long after my first meeting with Congressman Darrell Issa in February to discuss the possibility of recalling Gray Davis that frantic calls came from Republicans in California and Washington, D.C. This was no surprise because chronic hand-wringing and risk aversion have characterized much of our party the past few years. What if the recall fails? What if a Democrat is elected? Why would we want to be burdened with the...

<p>It was the most unusual campaign for high political office that California had ever seen, one that broke many -- perhaps all -- of the informal rules in the book.</p> <p>But Arnold Schwarzenegger was the most unusual candidate that California had ever seen, a self-made one-time bodybuilder who had parlayed his muscular physique, quick-study intelligence, boundless self-confidence -- and a knack for psyching out rivals -- into a big-time movie career.</p>

DAILY EXPRESS Baseless by Joel Kotkin Only at TNR Online Post date: 10.08.03 In yesterday's recall election, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante sailed to victory in heavily Democratic fortresses such as San Francisco, where he captured over 60 percent of the vote and overwhelmed Arnold Schwarzenegger by a margin of better than three-to-one. Meanwhile, right-wing diehards had their own love affair--with State Senator Tom McClintock. Despite garnering a mere 13 percent of the overall vote, McClintock nearly beat Bustamante in conservative Orange County. Which raises the question: With each party's base so loyal to its preferred candidate, how on earth did...

You gotta admire the way the media stayed on the Demo-crats' sinking California ship right to the very end. On the CNN Web site, even after Gray Davis had conceded, they were sticking to the loser's talking-points: ''Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria . . .'' CNN? Oh, that's that network with Larry King, who, like the Son of Sam, is a native of Brooklyn. Used to be owned by Ted Turner, who, like the Cincinnati Strangler, is a native of Cincinnati. Now part of Time Warner, founded by the Warner Brothers, the oldest of whom, Harry...

It could be that the good folks in California have sent a message, a message others across the country might want to heed. Whether the recall was a good idea or not, tossing out Gray Davis and electing Arnold Schwarzenegger may ultimately have nothing to do with qualifications or ability. Yes, Arnold probably got elected because he is a big movie star with a lot of personality and Davis was a complete toadstool. And who knows what kind of job Arnold will really do? The argument that he is a bright guy but doesn’t know anything about how government operates...

Voters are angry. Outsiders are in. And the swing voter is back. Arnold Schwarzenegger's big win offers a guide to 2004—if you know how to interpret it, that is If there is one lesson to be learned from California's wild recall, it is that there is no one lesson. At a moment when the stakes could not have been higher, voters turned out a seasoned if bloodless technocrat and put their faith in an action hero who waved a broom. In an era of interminable campaigns, this one lasted nine weeks. At a time when other politicians hauled around briefcases...

The media get recalled Arnold Schwarzenegger won, and Gray Davis lost, as did Cruz Bustamante, as did Arianna Huffington. But no one was more rejected in this 61 percent Republican tidal wave in an overwhelming Democratic state than the liberal press. Consider the media recalled. From the first signatures on recall petitions, the press was huffing and puffing with hysteria. Newsweek said the state "was in thrall to an earnest crank ... in the grip of what can only be described as a civic crackup." The New York Times called it a "throbbing political hangover." Peter Jennings warned, "The recall...

<p>"Ride the wave, Arnold!"</p> <p>Californians, those who voted for Schwarzenegger and those who didn't, still have little idea what their new "governator" will do. But with the sort of name recognition that no amount of campaign commercials could buy, palpable public resentment toward incumbent Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and a truncated two-month campaign that allowed him to short-circuit demands for detailed policy proposals, Schwarzenegger simply "rode the wave" and landed upright in the governor's office.</p>

Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant from Austria has won a landslide victory for the governor's race in California, a state so large in population and size that it could be its own country. He will represent its diverse people and run its currently ailing economy, the fifth largest in the world. How was this possible? What were the odds of this happening? What were the odds for this Austrian to become governor of a state that is regarded as a natural springboard to the White House? Schwarzenegger had all of the might of the opposition, wanna-be's, and presumed allies, after him....

What a world. Voters have elected a serial groper to be governor of California. And women helped put him there. According to exit polls, 44 percent of Arnold Schwarzenegger's voters were women. Whatever were they thinking? That the devil made him do it? That all men are dogs and can't help themselves? Or that the women who pointed the finger at Schwarzenegger were lying or acting as pawns of the Democrats? It wasn't just a few women. It began with two women putting their names out there in public and ended up, in less than a week, with about a...