State Senator Tom McClintock is far and away the best, most principled Republican in California. I'm proud to be one of his constituents. I hope he runs for governor and I hope he wins (although he unfortunately does not have the name recognition or money of a Riordan or Schwarzenegger). Tom did come within eighteen thousand votes (a small fraction of 1%) of beating multi-millionaire Steve Westly for the position of State Controller last November.
Tom was responsible for the partial repeal of the Car Tax (now restored by Davis' fiat), and is pushing initiatives to totally repeal the Car Tax. Tom has saved Californians billions of tax dollars, and he is the only politician around who I truly believe could pull the state out of its current disastrous budget mess.