Republicans will be energized to vote on Oct. 7 -- not just against Davis, who inspires in them a Clintonian level of disgust, but for Schwarzenegger, Riordan or one of the other Republicans who may be on the ballot. But if Davis is the only Democrat on the ballot, there may be little reason for Democrats to leave their homes because so few Democrats see the governor as worth saving.

"I think if you have an energetic candidate, a good, strong candidate like Dianne, then more Democrats will come out to vote," said Sanchez. "She's enough of a statesperson to campaign and say, 'Vote no on the first question and vote for Dianne on the second question.'"

As Sherman says, California Democrats "can walk and chew gum at the same time." Party leaders have to present their voters with a two-step strategy if they want to maximize their chances of holding on to Davis' seat -- with Davis in it or not.

"The unfortunate fact is that we need the best possible strategy to maximize all of our chances of winning," said Sherman. But, he said, the national Democratic leadership remains in denial about the recall drive. "When somebody gets bad news, they go through those eight steps, starting with denial. That whole grieving process can last a while, and it often lasts right until you have to respond logically. And we don't have to respond logically until next week. For now, we can react with denial, with anger, with all those steps, because we are angry and defiant. And only when those emotions decline do you do what you have to do."

Sherman said he was less than confident that the Democratic leadership would get through the denial stage and into something else before next week's deadline to enter the race. "If they had a month, I'd be confident that they would," he said. "We all have a belief that this whole process is unfair to Davis, and so there's a tendency to want to follow his lead and to embrace solutions that are not only in the state's interest but also his own."

California State Sen. Dean Florez said Democrats should be careful about tying their political future too closely to Davis' -- a point he said local elected officials might grasp more clearly than national Democratic leaders like McAuliffe. "I think it's important for Democrats to show that this is bigger than one person," Florez told Salon. "This is about the best strategy for the state and the best strategy for Californians. It makes me very upset that the national party would send someone out here and say I don't get a right to a choice. I think party unity is a good thing, but I'm not up for a Thelma-and-Louise suicide off the cliff."

Florez, who said he may enter the race if Feinstein does not, said he believes the national Democratic leadership suffers from "political deafness" in California. "There's this attitude that somehow we know better -- forget the 35 percent of the people who signed the recall petitions were Democrats, forget the fact that as many Democrats are dissatisfied with Davis as Republicans are," Florez said. "They think they can play this off as some sort of Republican cabal, but I think it is an overall sentiment of both Republicans and Democrats that they are not happy with the direction the state is heading in. We ought to be listening to that, and we ought to be providing candidates who respond to it."

McAuliffe didn't return a call from Salon. But Jennifer Crider, deputy communications director for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, said that the Democratic leadership has reasons to fight the recall that go far beyond saving Davis' job. The recall, she said, is part of a larger Republican pattern, and Democrats have to stand up and stop it.

"If you look at what happened in Florida during the 2000 election, if you look at what the Republicans are tying to do in Texas with redistricting, and you look at what the Republicans are trying to do in California -- it's a pattern where Republicans are trying to use the system to change elections," Crider said. "It's really concerning to the leader as an attack on representative democracy."

The Republican coup theme isn't the only way in which Florida 2000 may echo in California 2003; there could be politically motivated judicial intervention as well. Several California taxpayers have filed petitions asking the California Supreme Court to cancel the second half of the recall vote -- the part of the ballot on which voters are asked to name a successor to Davis in the event that he is recalled. The taxpayers argue that, under the California Constitution, the lieutenant governor is to fill "any vacancy" in the governor's office, even one caused by the recall of the sitting governor.

It's a plausible but not overwhelming legal argument, says UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein, an expert on election law. The question is whether the Republican-dominated Supreme Court will bite. Lowenstein believes that is unlikely, but other political observers aren't so sure. Tony Quinn, who edits the California Target Book, a sourcebook for political operators in the state, says that the court has a history of deferring to what he calls the "political ruling classes." And Republican or Democrat, he says, the members of that class are opposed to the chaos that the recall has wrought -- not to mention the fact that it has opened the door for nontraditional candidates like Arianna Huffington and Green Party member Peter Camejo to make serious runs for the governor's office.

The court has asked all parties to file their briefs in the case by Wednesday, suggesting a rushed schedule that could lead to a decision even before the candidates' filing deadline on Saturday. Quinn suggests that such a scenario is likely. "I've kind of had this view all along that the pro-recall people don't really understand how much they're taking on the political class," he said. "The political class is made up of sophisticated people who will frustrate them at every turn."

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