Nothing is certain in California politics except that, no matter who the next governor is, the legislature will be firmly in the hands of the socialists, as it has been for the last 30 years (except for a two-year period from 1994-96, part of the "Republican Revolution" that swept the SOB RATs out of the Congressional majority) The problem was, by the time the Repubos realized they had the majority, another election cycle had occurred and they were back in the minority again!
The Republican Party in California cannot get its crap together. The candidates they ran for the last two gubernatorial elections, Lungren and Simon, may have been good governors if they had won; but the campaigns they ran were rotten and totally mismanaged. The California Repubos have a lot of internal strife. They have been their own worst enemy. The rotten RATs always pull together in the end, no matter what personal dislikes they may feel toward their fellow RATs during primaries. (Not so Repubos, those turds can really nurse a resentment for a long time). They also have a well-oiled voting machine in Cal that might just incorporate vote fraud here and there.
I can think of at least a half dozen RAT-bastards that have a good chance of becoming governor next time including that criminal, the current AG, Bill Lockyer, he is as bad or maybe worse than Davis, if that's possible. Along with John Burton, a few others are absolute commies to the core. If the recall is successful and a Repubo wins the recall election, then its a good bet that an incumbent has the edge in the next regular election. That's the only good possibility that I see in the recall effort - to put the veto pen in the hand of the opposition, in this case, us.