State Treasurer Phil Angelides stopped just short the other day of using the infamous phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy" to describe the recall campaign being waged against Gov. Gray Davis.
Angelides, however, told the Sacramento Press Club that he believes Republicans are holding up passage of the state budget as part of an orchestrated scheme to prolong the budget crisis and therefore drive down Davis' already abysmal public approval ratings. He described it as "a concerted effort ... to link the policy debate on the budget to the politics of the recall."

Other Democratic Party figures go further.

The state party's political director, Bob Mulholland, is telling everyone that Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political tactician, is pulling the strings for the recall, including the holdup of the budget.

Davis' record-low popularity, they are saying, is the product of circumstances beyond his control. Republicans, the party line continues, are trying to capitalize on Davis' unfortunate circumstances by driving him from office with a misuse of the recall process and replacing him with a right-wing Republican. The comments indicate that as the dump-Davis petition drive continues to gather steam, with a recall election now probable, Democrats appear to have settled on an overall defensive theme -- a sort of Clinton-impeachment-redux approach depicting it as an illegitimate coup d'etat.

The Davis-as-victim propaganda is designed, it would appear, to generate some sympathetic support among Democrats who might otherwise be tempted to sign recall petitions and/or vote for a recall.

Another element of the defense strategy, apparently, is to force those Democratic voters to see the choice as only between Davis and a GOP alternative. At the urging of state labor union leaders who are organizing the Davis recall defense, Angelides and other major Democratic figures are now insisting they will not offer themselves as alternatives should the recall make the ballot. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Saturday she's not a candidate, either. It's not certain, however, their unity on that point will hold.

Back to the right-wing conspiracy theory. Angelides et al. are giving California Republicans much more credit for strategic vision and organizational efficacy than they deserve. Not only are they inherently incapable of such concerted action against Democrats, since they spend most of their energy trying to shaft each other, but in fact they are squabbling among themselves over whether the recall is a smart political move and are probably incapable of settling on a single GOP alternative to Davis.

Rove and the White House are clearly cool to the recall notion, as are some of the state's senior Republicans -- albeit privately. As they see it, a recall election could have multiple potential outcomes, some of which would hurt the GOP, to wit:

* Davis could win a recall and get a new lease on political life.

* He could be recalled, but be replaced by a more popular Democrat (Feinstein is especially feared) who could then go on to win a new term in 2006.

* Davis could lose a recall election and be succeeded by a weak Republican, who would inherit all of the state's fiscal and economic problems, face an implacably hostile, Democrat-controlled Legislature and be a losing candidate for re-election in 2006.

The best outcome for Republicans would be to have Davis gone and a strong GOP successor also elected, one who could retain the office in 2006. But even that would not be an unmixed blessing because that GOP governor could not, under the term limit law, run again in 2010. And it's the governor elected in 2010 who will control redistricting after the 2010 census.

That's why Republicans who are leery of the recall believe that their party's interests are best served by leaving an unpopular Davis in place, poisoning the political well for Democrats and leading to Republican gubernatorial victories in 2006 and 2010. Their party would then control redistricting, enhancing chances of picking up legislative and congressional seats.

If nothing else, the recall crusade has spawned countless scenarios.