Self-Hating Voters

Gray Davis calls the California recall election "an insult to the 8 million people who went to the polls last November and decided I should be governor." But according to the official results, Davis got about 3.5 million votes last fall, 47 percent of the 7.3 million votes cast in the governor's race. So Davis is exaggerating the support he had in November by a factor of more than two. And judging from recent polls, many one-time Davis supporters do not consider the recall an insult.

Far from being an affront to democracy, the recall is, if anything, democracy run amuck. But Davis probably would not score many electoral points with that argument.