National and Local Experts Following the California Recall Election

Transcript

BRUCE CAIN: This is obviously a stunning result in California. Here we have a state that has essentially a nine-point registration advantage for the Democrats, in which every state-wide office had been controlled by the Democrats and when you count up the numbers and the polling is not completed; they're still counting absentee ballots; but it's going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock combined are going to get 61% of the vote in a state where 35% of the registered voters are Republican.

This is just a stunning reversal for Republican candidates, who have been in the wilderness, been excluded from power, have been the subject of derision, both nationally and in the state of California and now they're sitting in a situation where a moderate Republican candidate, despite all of the turmoil of the last few days has managed to get 48% of the vote, which is more than Governor Davis got in the last election, exceeding all of the predictions of the polls and beating Cruz Bustamante, who was the only Democratic candidate in the race, and he got 32% of the vote, which is about 12 percentage points below the party registration.

What that tells you, of course, is that this was not just a Republican coup; it was a revolt of Democrats and right now the Democratic party is reeling in California trying to figure out why this happened and I think the answer is some combination of what's happening in terms of the California economy and the people's frustrations about the government's inability to react to it, plus some huge tactical decisions, decisions that were wrong, on the part of the Democratic party and then a well run campaign on the part of the Republicans.

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