Every four years Californians are treated to a governor's race featuring some of the most inept campaigning this side of Robert Shrum, and this year is no exception. Since Pete Wilson and Dianne Feinstein battled it out in 1990 in one of the closest races in history, the losing candidates in the Golden State have been Kathleen Brown (1994), who started out the race twenty points ahead of Gov. Wilson, only to somehow run out of money with ten days to go, thereby forcing her to go dark on any last-second media buys, Dan Lundgren (1998), who managed to lose to Gray Davis by an even larger margin than Brown had four years earlier, Bill Simon (2002), who lost to Davis even though the governor was so unpopular that the recall efforts would begin almost the day after, and now Phil Angelides.

Angelides may take the cake as the most inept nominee of a major party ever to seek the governorship; the only campaign that really comes close would be Pat Brown's effort against Ronald Reagan in 1966, and even that has to be seen in the context of his having won twice before. Right now, Schwarzenegger is clobbering him by anywhere from ten to seventeen points, according to whichever poll you believe, but more troubling may be the anemic showing of other Democrats seeking statewide office (see here and here), most of whom are not being challenged by charismatic and/or liberal Republican opponents.

Angelides' ineptitude is of the quality that one begins to wonder how he can be removed from the ballot, if only to save the party from a monumental debacle in five weeks. Schwarzenegger has labeled him a traditional "tax-and-spend" liberal, which isn't shocking; what's shocking is that the only response from the Democrat has been to air ads that replay the governor's endorsement of President Bush two years ago, a strategem that has almost no effect on swing voters. The voters will give liberal candidates some benefit of the doubt if, at the very least, they connect tax increases with tangible governmental results. But if Angelides supports universal health coverage, or rebuilding the levees in the Central Valley, or lowering teacher-student class sizes in public schools, that message hasn't gone out to the voters. He has yet to give anyone a positive reason to vote for him, a rationale for why the voters would benefit by having him assume office in December.

Moreover, he has generated almost no passion at the "netroots" level, which is even more surprising considering how many important bloggers are from this state. The sort of intensity that is endemic when the blogs focus on a particular race has been absent here, even though California is the largest state, and the enthusiasm that the internet can generate is absolutely necessary in mobilization. As a consequence, low voter turnout by California Democrats may very well lead to a disaster on Election Day, both at the state level and in the battle to take control of the House of Representatives.