WE KNOW the big winner and loser in the California gubernatorial recall. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not only the governor-elect, he got a higher percentage (48.1) of the vote among 135 candidates to replace Gray Davis than Davis himself got (45.3) on the separate ballot on whether he should be recalled. And when you combine Schwarzenegger’s vote with Tom McClintock’s (13.3), it adds up to a Republican landslide. But there were other winners and losers in the recall that may not be so obvious. Here are a few of them:
Winner: Pragmatic conservatives. Conservatives mostly voted for Schwarzenegger though he wasn’t the most conservative candidate by a long shot. McClintock was. But they recognized the election was about ousting Davis, not ideological purity. So they voted for the most conservative candidate with a chance of being elected.
