As he climbed California's political ladder, rung by rung, over nearly three decades, Gray Davis studiously avoided saying or doing anything that would alienate a significant voter bloc; indeed, as a slavish devotee of polls and focus groups, he carefully adopted the most popular, or least risky, position on every major topic.

Davis described himself as a centrist and rode the political fence, never spending political capital, always seeking the path of least resistance, never displaying even a scintilla of daring -- much less vision.

How ironic, then, that this endemically risk-averse politician now finds himself to be the most unpopular governor in California history and running behind in a looming recall election, with dozens of would-be successors crowding the ballot.
The week leading up to Saturday's close of filing for the Oct. 7 recall election was a three-ring circus, each day providing some new wrinkle to a situation already unprecedented in its scope. Arnold Schwarzenegger's announcement on national television that he would run certainly topped the list of dramatic events -- he had been widely reported to have decided against it -- but Sen. Dianne Feinstein's decision not to run was stunning, as was Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's defiance of Democratic Party leaders in filing as an alternative to Davis. And then there was the barrage of state Supreme Court decisions rejecting various lawsuits on aspects of the recall election.

By week's end, television pundits, radio talk jockeys and Internet bloggers were in full feeding frenzy, driven by the Schwarzenegger angle. His square-jawed visage and thick Austrian accent dominated the media on the assumption that Davis was toast and the only issue to be settled was whether Californians would choose the bodybuilder-turned-actor as his replacement, or opt for someone less interesting to professional chatterers.

Media assumptions notwithstanding, it will be a two-part election -- first, whether voters want Davis to continue in office, and second, which of dozens of potential successors they would prefer if Davis were to be dumped.

The national media seem to be concentrating on the second, thanks to Schwarzenegger, while anti-recall forces don't seem to know what to do. The governor's natural inclination is to attack his foe, thus making himself, in effect, the lesser of two evils. He had already launched attacks on Congressman Darrell Issa, the chief financier of the recall petition drive, but Issa's withdrawal as a candidate makes that tactic worthless. Now the anti-recallers are shifting gears to concentrate on Schwarzenegger, the putative front-runner, but that tactic doesn't do anything to answer the first question: Does Davis deserve the ignominious fate of becoming the first California governor to be recalled? Davis could destroy Schwarzenegger and still be recalled by voters.

Issa's withdrawal, Schwarzenegger's emergence and Bustamante's candidacy all make it more difficult for Davis to simply portray the recall drive as a right-wing conspiracy, and thus forces him to mount at least a token defense. If he loses on the first question, it matters little -- to Davis, at least -- whom voters choose to succeed him.

Could Davis beat the recall and make the jousting among Schwarzenegger et al moot? The polls are not encouraging to Davis on that point, not surprisingly, since two-thirds of voters believe he's been a failure. In his zealous avoidance of risk, he allowed two relatively minor glitches -- first energy and later the state budget -- to develop into full-blown crises, mismanaged both and alienated voters.

The ultimate irony, then, is that by trying to avoid risk, Davis put himself in the riskiest of political situations: running behind in a recall election. Now he's pandering to the most liberal elements of his own party to generate opposition to the recall, converting himself from a self-proclaimed centrist into a self-described "progressive." But in doing that he merely fuels the anger of nonliberal voters who already view him as an unreliable political chameleon, willing to change positions on any issue at any time.

It's what got him into trouble in the first place, but Davis rarely learns from his mistakes -- or even acknowledges he's made them -- and that may be his most damning flaw.