And just as in the impeachment fight, the perceived faults in the recall process have given many Democrats an argument for supporting a leader despite what they see as his fundamental flaws.
For many recall opponents, the vote should not be taken as a referendum on Davis' record. Many agree with recall backers that Davis bungled California's electricity crisis, spent the state into a $38-billion budget hole and devoted himself more to fund-raising than to governance. Their point: It doesn't matter.
The governor broke no laws, and those who want to oust him had their chance last November, when he won reelection over Republican Bill Simon Jr., these recall opponents say.
"We elected him," said Susan Gerson, 56, an independent in Pleasant Hill, in the San Francisco Bay Area. "It was not that long ago, and if these guys didn't want him in, they should have done something then."
Davis himself sketches the recall effort in starkly partisan terms, drawing a line directly from the Clinton impeachment to the current state campaign.
"This recall is bigger than California," the governor said in a speech at UCLA last month that kicked off his fight for survival. "What's happening here is part of an ongoing national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win."
This effort, Davis said, "started with the impeachment of President Clinton when Republicans could not beat him in 1996. It continued in Florida, where they stopped the vote count, depriving thousands of Americans of the right to vote" after the presidential election in 2000. It has continued, he said, in redistricting fights in Colorado and Texas, and in "this recall to seize control of California just before the next presidential election."
Republicans and some others criticized Davis for those remarks. But they seem to have struck a chord among many California voters, especially Democrats. In a recent Field poll, more than half the voters who planned to vote against the recall agreed with the statement: "Republicans are engaged in a systematic effort to steal elections from Democratic officeholders."
"Davis has got a point," said Roy Jensen, 55, a carpenter and registered Democrat in the Bay Area town of Cupertino. Jensen said Davis was making the same point that Hillary Rodham Clinton, talking about the impeachment, made "about the vast right-wing conspiracy, and I think she was totally right."
