Question Of Fairness

"This is a time when our attention should be focused on working in a bipartisan manner to solve the state's fiscal crisis, to fix our public schools, to increase public safety, and to restore California's economy," Feinstein said in a statement issued last month. "Sadly, the state is instead going to be engaged in an election that is becoming more and more like a carnival every day."

This last point expresses the "circus" argument against the recall -- that the presence of 135 candidates on the ballot, many of them with little or no political experience, demeans the process and makes California a national laughingstock. It also, critics say, has created a ballot so long that it is guaranteed to confound some voters.

Davis' campaign has sought to exploit that concern, running a television advertisement that says of the recall: "Newspapers are calling it a circus. 'Millionaires, local gadflies, political mavericks, even a porn king.' All running for governor -- because someone could win with as little as 15% of the vote."

So far, however, polls suggest that those concerns are more troubling to politicians than to voters, even voters who agree that the likes of porn star Mary Carey and former child star Gary Coleman are probably not up to the task of running the nation's most populous state.

One of the stickier objections to the recall is the assertion that it is undemocratic. Supporters of the recall hail it as an experiment in democracy. Opponents counter that Davis was democratically elected and should be allowed to serve out his term.

"This is just not how we choose our elected officials in America," Exley argued. "There are a lot of tactics that could be used in government that would be legal, but which are not used. Because one thing about how our democratic system works is, it requires some restraint and some level of civility, and this is totally stepping outside of that.

"Another reason is that we're going to get -- if the recall succeeds -- we're going to get a governor who's been elected by a tiny, tiny minority of the electorate. And so he or she will replace a governor who was elected by a majority of the electorate."

In reality, Davis did not win a majority in his last election. He received 47% of the vote. Turnout for that election was little more than half of the state's registered voters. The likelihood is, however, that whoever wins the replacement ballot on Oct. 7 will have an even smaller percentage of overall support.