[Darkwolf377]

Davis' approval numbers had dropped to a disastrous 36%; by the time he beat Simon he was only up to 41%--and Simon lost by five points. I understand your point about Simon being eminently preferable, but come on, losing by that much when Davis was in the toilet isn't close--I mean, Davis got MORE of a percentage in the race than he had approval numbers.

[Carry_Okie]

Your knowledge of what happened in that campaign is severely lacking. Basically Rove put much of the money in Parsky's hands. Parsky extorted Simon's original campaign manager into signing a letter supporting the Log Cabin Republicans, which PO'd Simon's footsoldiers. He then starved the campaign deliberately and then shoveled a small fraction of what he'd promised to favored consultants Wilson/Jones and Ed Rollins who flushed it with almost criminal incompetence.

The only other factor was a bogus lawsuit that Simon had been involved with dirty dealings for which he was eventually exonerated only too late, but that is just your usual Democrat dirty trick Simon should have been able to handle. It was a full court press.

Simon's weakness was that he is too nice a guy.

The point is that this is a State that will vote conservative upon occasion. It did with Prop 22, Prop 209, and Prop 227. It bought Schwarzenegger with the bogus promise that he would cut spending. Tom McClintock remains the most popular politician in the state, even if he has lost narrowly. Again, Arnold cut off the money for his campaign too.