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One thing I don't like about open elections like this is that they are often decided by things unrelated to the strengths and weaknesses of individual candidates. If you have one strong candidate from one major party, several candidates from the other major party, and a whole host of other minor-party candidates, then the winner will likely be elected with a small plurality of the vote.

This is exactly what happened in Jersey City, New Jersey, a few years ago, when Bret Schundler was elected mayor with something like 17% of the vote just because he was the only Republican in an open election (to replace a mayor who went to prison, if I remember correctly). It was great to see a Republican win like that in a Democratic stronghold, but it was a very unusual quirk of the system nonetheless.

It's hard to avoid this kind of scenario under California's recall election rules, but each major party can exercise a certain amount of control over their potential candidates. In this election, I've got a couple of major points to make:

1. Bill Simon should never have bothered entering the race in the first place. Out of all the candidates, he's the one guy who had a chance to beat Davis already -- and he didn't succeed. If the GOP ran a single candidate in this recall, and that candidate was Simon, he would have lost again.

2. The California state Republican Party should sit down with each of the "major" GOP candidates (Arnold, McClintock, and Ueberroth) and lay down one very clear rule: Any candidate among you who stays in the race and loses to Bustamante will never get the GOP's support to run for office in California again.

With this second point in place, I think two things would happen: McClintock would decide if his "conservative principles" in this election are more important than his political career, and Arnold would make up his mind very quickly about whether he is serious about running, winning, and governing effectively.

I can understand why principled people make a firm stand in cases like this, but as someone who lives in a heavily Democratic state I understand what it's like for a truly conservative candidate to have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. If McClintock couldn't win this race even if he were the only Republican candidate (and it looks this way), he ought to get out as quickly as possible and stop his little Ross Perot game.