Your question about how one would know the dem strategy was very strange.
The whole thing has boiled down to a strategy of trying to tie Arnold to right wing extremism and Bush and pit that vs Davis.
The Republicans knew this and let it hamper them. Jim Brulte officially took no side or stance on recall just for this reason. Yet even with this the dems screamed how Brulte was corrdinating it on behalf of the Whitehouse.
Now Brulte has endorsed Schwarzenegger. The dem playbook has been manifested finally.
Will it fly? Hard to say. It worked well with Simon, but he was cheez whiz.
It's all very strange but I see it as a turf war more than a war between left and right.