Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante may be eating lunch alone for the rest of his life. It's ironic. He'll be the lonely guy of Sacramento because he personified an ideology prevalent among Sacramento Democrats -- pro-big government and pro-illegal immigration -- that voters have had enough of. The fact that Schwarzenegger garnered more votes than the No on Recall effort should give Sacramento Democrats pause.

Add to that picture the 1 million votes cast in favor of GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock, and state Democratic Party officials should be very afraid.

Many voters were enraged that state spending had swelled to the point that the budget shortfall reached $38 billion. Tuesday's vote shows a demand that state government stop expanding.

Then, Gov. Gray Davis' decision to sign Senate Bill 60, which allows illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, sealed his doom. Bustamante was a big booster of the measure, too. He didn't help himself when, at the first candidates' debate, he failed to name a single state benefit that he would deny illegal immigrants. (When Bustamante spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, I asked him the question again. He answered: voting and passports. That was it.)

The Dems have tried to paint opposition to illegal immigration as racist, but according to a Los Angeles Times poll, 38 percent of Latino voters strongly opposed SB 60. The ploy didn't work.

Not to worry, Team Davis obviously concluded. If the racist card doesn't work, there's always sexism.

Davis and friends pounced after the Los Angeles Times printed a story in which six women -- four who refused to be named -- accused Schwarzenegger of groping them between 1975 and 2000, often in front of witnesses. After seven weeks' investigation, the paper had managed to talk to only one eyewitness -- for the most recent accusation -- and she refuted the allegation. Ah-nold watchers knew about his crude talk about women, but these uncorroborated stories added a new element to the campaign, Puke Journalism. Continued...