But Britain's revival was one choice away. In 1979, voters elected someone who lacked warmth but possessed a plan as radical as Britain's condition required -- Margaret Thatcher, who, it was said, could not see an institution without swatting it with her handbag.
Only one California candidate, State Sen. Tom McClintock, is, like Thatcher, a ``conviction politician'' prepared to discipline the nanny state. He has a Thatcherite charm deficit but -- perhaps these attributes are related -- determination to summon California, as Thatcher summoned Britain, up from infantilism.
He has her determination to revive what she called ``the vigorous virtues''-- entrepreneurship, deferral of gratification, individual initiative, personal responsibility in making appetites conform to resources. Together, these aptitudes can be called adulthood.
Neither Davis, a proven failure, nor the blazingly undistinguished Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, nor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an already stale novelty, seems to have a clue about how to attack California's problems. McClintock, lacking both money for ample paid media and charisma to attract sufficient unpaid media, is nevertheless as buoyant as an incurably unflamboyant person can be.
In an interview three hours after the judicial panel ruled, McClintock was characteristically blunt in disdaining the ruling: ``We held elections on schedule during the Civil War.'' And he expressed four reasons for optimism:
Schwarzenegger's support seems to have hit a ceiling under 30 percent.
Voter interest is so high -- even without Schwarzenegger participating, the recent candidates' debate led, he says, the Nielsen ratings in Los Angeles and San Francisco -- McClintock can get his message out. In 2002, running statewide for controller, he was outspent 5-1 but lost by just three-tenths of 1 percent.
McClintock has risen from 8 to 13 to 18 percent and can reach a tipping point -- ``I don't know where it is, but I'll know it when I see it'' -- where ``pent-up'' conservatives now gritting their teeth and supporting Schwarzenegger will switch to him.
The later the vote, the more Davis will be mired in making unpopular budget choices.
Perhaps. But if Davis is recalled he probably will be replaced by a governor who received substantially fewer votes than were cast against the recall. Davis and the California voters who have chosen him twice deserve each other, unless and until the voters choose Thatcherite medicine.