I'm not a liberal, and I don't like Davis. In his defense, though, ALL politicians run negative these days, it's apparently the only way to win. Neither Davis nor the Democrats have a monopoly on mud-slinging (though their shredding Riordan in the Republican primary last year was a cynical move that Karl Rove or Lee Atwater would be proud of).

California's problems have been growing for years. The electricity debacle from two summers ago was the result of a poorly thought-out half-assed deregulation plan enacted under Pete Wilson. Davis could have played it better, but he didn't invent it. The state's fiscal problems are more the fault of the legislature than the governor - they thought the capital-gains driven bubble tax revenues would last forever, so like ALL politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, they started passing it out like candy in the form of increased expenditures. The tax revenue base reverted to its pre-bubble level, but the legislature was stuck with longer term obligations. Davis didn't stop it, and should have, but you could say the same thing about the Republican minority in the legislature - California's supermajority budget approval means, (as they're proving right now) that they can keep a budget from being enacted if they want. Why didn't they do it when they could have saved the state from its current fiasco?