For nearly a century, California voters have had the power to recall statewide elected officials. Not once have they chosen to exercise it. It never seemed like a good idea.

As a matter of principle and precedent, it still doesn't. Yet, however much Californians might wish otherwise, the recall of Gov. Gray Davis is headed for the ballot, where it will soon become not just a matter of principle and precedent, but also an issue of practical politics: Who should lead the state over the next three years? Like most Californians, we can't answer that question until we know our choices.

The Davis recall, launched by Republicans less than 100 days after the last election, has tasted from the beginning like a shipment of particularly sour grapes. There's nothing in the recall's bill of particulars against Davis -- his mishandling of the electricity crisis, his failure to bridge the Legislature's wide ideological divide on the budget, his perpetual fund-raising -- that state voters didn't know, and even regret, when they re-elected him over a hopeless challenger.
Indeed, all that separates postelection Davis from pre-election Davis is his (belated) willingness to spell out the scope of the state's fiscal crisis. The irony is that Davis' proposals last winter for spending cuts and tax increases, a sign of budding leadership, served only to further depress his already drooping approval ratings. Apparently, the only thing Californians dislike more than a governor who doesn't lead is one who does.

Other governors have been unpopular before. But none before Davis has ever faced a multimillionaire wannabe -- in this case, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista -- willing to pour huge amounts of his fortune into collecting the required 900,000 signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot and open the door for his own candidacy as a replacement. And so the recall seems certain to get its maiden statewide test.

Whatever you think about Davis, it's worth worrying about what this recall might mean for the state's dwindling ability to govern itself.

In theory, the recall, instituted in 1911, has always carried the risk of becoming just one more tool of partisan political warfare, used by election losers to harass election winners. In practice, that didn't happen in the last century.

The parties and the interests that backed those parties accepted election outcomes as the will of the voters and observed at least a partial distinction between politics and governing. Even if they were itching for more battle, getting the necessary signatures for a recall of a statewide officer -- 12 percent of the vote in the last election for the office -- was hard. Through most of the 20th century, the electorate was large and qualifying a recall required mobilizing a huge bloc of citizens. The recall threshold was high.

No more. The active electorate has shrunk as a share of the population, and new technologies of communication and political action have transformed politics. Getting a recall to the ballot is now a relatively simple task. It requires only discontent with an incumbent, a couple of million dollars for paid petition circulators and the signatures of only one out of every 24 adult citizens in the state.

Does the Davis recall signal a trend? No one can say for certain. It may be an anomaly -- the conjunction of a uniquely inept leader with a uniquely challenging moment in the state's history. Or it could be the start of something new, and dangerously destabilizing, in state politics.

Our best estimate is that, based on growing partisanship, declining citizen attention and the surging influence of moneyed special interests, this recall is more likely the beginning of something rather than an end. If so, it will be a moment California eventually comes to regret.

The regrets could come even sooner thanks to the badly outdated recall mechanism. In a recall, the constitution mandates two votes: one on whether to oust the targeted official, and the second to pick a successor if the recall passes. The winner is the candidate with the plurality of votes.

Since the race to replace Davis could attract a half-dozen high-profile candidates, and many more minor ones, it's entirely possible that the next governor could be carried to victory with his own private wealth and the votes of fewer than 5 percent of California's adult citizens. That's not the best way for a democracy to pick its leaders.

All of that tilts the argument against the recall. But it doesn't end it. The argument in principle against recall might still be outweighed if California could get a governor more capable, farsighted and inspiring than the incumbent. It's a long shot, but we're not ready yet to give up hoping.