After all the remarks about what a circus and a joke the California recall election is, the strangest damn thing has happened: the campaign has become issues oriented, with much of the media actually talking about what the leading candidates stand for, and a variety of thought among those candidates that voters can easily distinguish.

Oh, the circus atmosphere is still there; along with the porn star and the sleazy magazine publisher and the showbiz midget and all of that, there are a hundred or so dogged, earnest people striving to be heard on a variety of issues ranging from medical care to legalization of ferrets. But it’s shifted very much to the back burner.

As the debate last night made clear, there are six major candidates, plus Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie is limping along on name recognition, but it’s become clear that his campaign is an utter fiasco, and his role in this election is that of being the biggest clown.

He no-showed the debate, which was not a shrewd political move, and went to CalState Long Beach, where he was not only jeered, but was pelted by an egg (and I hope the Angels are looking for the guy who tossed that egg; their pitching staff needs a little shoring up). Nothing like passing up an opportunity to run with the big dogs so you can look a) unwelcome and b) even worse, foolish. Rex Babin, the editorial cartoonist for the Sacramento Bee, had fun with that. He showed people filing into a movie theater that had "California Gubernatorial Debate." In an "attractions" window to the side, he had "Now (no) showing: Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Running (Away) Man."

Still flailing about in the morass of his ridiculous "no special interests" pledge, he announced he was returning a check for $2,500 that the police union had sent. Of course, he isn’t sending back money from interests who want price supports on milk and tax deductions for businesses; those aren’t "special interests."

For Californians, the campaign which began as sorry spectacle is now a fairly entertaining race among a variety of candidates who reflect a much broader array of California political interests than what we normally get. In a typical governor’s race, we get a bland and colorless centrist who looks good only because he’s pitted against a raving loon from the far right. The loon, despite support from talk radio and clapboard churches and despite the advantages of a huge war chest, gets clobbered by the wan and timid centrist. It makes for boring politics.

This year, there’s actually a couple of honest-to-gosh liberals in the race. Arianna Huffington (Independent) and Peter Camejo (Green) are both articulate, well spoken, and have an engaged and active following. Ueberroth (R) and Bustamante (D) are both centrists, leaning only slightly away from center in the expected directions. And McClintock (R) is the right wing candidate. And, with the exception of Bustamante, they are all hoping that Davis will be recalled and they will be elected. At this point, they all have a chance, since Arnie has pretty well disintegrated, and Bustamante’s acceptance of a 3.8 million dollars in just a couple of campaign contributions from gambling tribes and unions has people howling in protest, both inside and outside of the Democratic party. The elected representatives of the party are at best lukewarm to the notion of Clean Campaign reform, and party bosses antipathetic, but it’s an idea that is rapidly gaining among the party rank-and-file, and so a lot of Democratic voters are as appalled at this massive (and due to a loophole in prop 34, which set campaign contribution limits of $21,200, that allows Bustamante to claim this is for his 2002 campaign, legal) donation. Even the party chairman, Art Torres, was looking into ways to make Bustamante return the money. He told reporters, "It’s legal, but it doesn’t pass the smell test."

Bustamante finally caved to the political pressure and announced the money would be given to the no-on-54 campaign.

Prop 54 is another one of those Ward Connerly abominations that gives admissions officers and personnel hiring managers the ability to say, "Honest, we never noticed those applicants we turned down were all Negroes. It doesn’t SAY they were negroes on their applications!" and also prevents the state from tracking to see who is getting hired or admitted and who isn’t. It started out with a big lead in the polls, but has been losing ground rapidly as people get past the noble and high-flown rhetoric of "color blindness" and recognize that it permits institutionalized racism without allowing the collection of any evidence that might afford legal redress to the victims.

Arnie, perhaps smarting over criticism of his support for Prop 187, (another Ward Connerly "let’s screw over minorities" special) came out against 54. Leaving McClintock the only one of the top-tier candidates to support it.

More attention than usual is being paid to fiscal matters, due in part to the fact that the recall was foisted on us with the false claim that Davis blew the state budget and caused a $34 billion shortfall. And there, too, there are sharp differences between the candidates. Camejo is the only one who flatly opposes a spending cap (he’s right, too: spending caps are just another one of those "sound good" government-by-remote-control measures that usually cause far more harm than good). Bustamante, Arnie and Ueberroth all support vague "spending cuts" although none are very specific. Arnie says that he’ll cut $29 billion from the general fund but not touch education, which means he would have to cut 30% from everything else. That would be quite a trick. Huffington and Ueberroth oppose hiring an outside auditor; the rest approve. All favor a tax amnesty in order to facilitate collection of unpaid taxes. Bustamante, Camejo and Huffington favor increased taxes on the rich; the other three oppose it. The same breakdown applies to taxes on liquor and cigarettes, and reducing the margin needed in the Assembly to pass a budget from the present 67% to 55%. All want to repeal the 300% license fee increase on cars, although Bustamante wants to keep it for vehicles with a value greater than $20,000. McClintock, Arnie, and Ueberroth favor selling off "state assets" as "surplus property." We had one crackpot GOP congressman who, back in the mid nineties, pushed legislation to try and force California to sell the state aqueduct system to farmers and ranchers at a price of roughly one third of a cent to the dollar. Hopefully these three have nothing that extreme – not to mention stupid – in mind.

McClintock and Arnie want to privatize state services, on the loony premise that you can save money on a service if someone is skimming 30% off the top. Just like HMOs, yes.

The breakdown on social issues tends to follow ideological lines, although Arnie, of course, is fairly liberal, and Bustamante fairly conservative. But no real surprises.

The big surprise is how much attention the public is paying – not just to Arnie and the freak-show aspects, but to the actual issues themselves. And that can only be good.

Incidently, where I expected perhaps 20% voter turnout on October 7^th, I now think it might be above 50%.

And that can only benefit Davis, and the state as a whole.