Gray Davis has been a fixture in California politics for more than a quarter-century. He's been elected five times to statewide office -- twice as controller, once as lieutenant governor, twice as governor.

He was Gov. Jerry Brown's chief of staff in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was elected twice to the Assembly and ran an unsuccessful -- and famously vile -- campaign against Dianne Feinstein in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.

Along the way, he distorted and exploited the issue of abducted children to advance his own career and became notorious for his relentless pay-to-play campaign fund raising that fell just this side of extortion. He snatched causes that he'd neglected or opposed and later claimed as his own. He's done nothing without checking the polls.

All that, and more, has been known for years, though often the media -- and especially TV -- paid little attention. But we kept re-electing him. Just over three years ago, his job approval rating was at 60 percent.

The only major events since were the energy crisis, where Davis, afraid of allowing retail rates to rise, dithered too long, and the bust in the economy, which in turn decimated the state's revenues.

Both can be blamed as much on Republicans as on Davis -- in the first case on energy-industry manipulators, their friends at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Gov. Pete Wilson, who promoted deregulation and signed the state's flawed electricity restructuring scheme. In the case of the economy the blame belongs at least as much (or as little) to the national administration, which, like Davis, has either caused or watched a monster budget surplus turn into an even greater deficit.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seems baffled by even the most basic California problems, keeps talking about the flight of jobs from California. But proportionately more jobs have vanished from the national economy since 2001 than from California's.

Davis deserves all the grief he's getting. But you're still left wondering about the causes -- and maybe the sanity -- of this recall. For those of us who've followed Davis for 25 years and have spent the last six weeks answering recall questions not only from other American reporters and TV networks, but also from baffled reporters in France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Canada and elsewhere, no explanation seems quite persuasive.

Another attempt by Republicans to overturn a Democratic victory? Another populist revolt by voters frustrated by the incompetence, the slow pace, the indifference of government and other institutions?

Both are simplistic. California's hyper-democracy, with its orgy of initiatives, can hardly be said to be unreflective of what the voters wanted -- term limits, tax and spending caps, major environmental programs, insurance regulation, an end to affirmative action and bilingual education.

So is it just those venal politicians who've created a dysfunctional system; or is it the voters themselves? The recall wouldn't have qualified without Republican money; it echoes the take-no-prisoners vehemence of the GOP in the impeachment of President Clinton, the 2000 Florida recount battle and the current redistricting fight in Texas, where Republicans are also trying to get a second bite of the apple. But Davis will never be recalled without the votes of Democrats, many of whom now detest him almost as much as the Republicans.

This would probably be a nonstory had Rep. Darrell Issa not written the checks that got the recall on the ballot. And if this is a populist revolt, just what is its message? Replacing Davis with Cruz Bustamante or Tom McClintock -- or even Wilson in Schwarzenegger's body -- isn't going to address the state's fiscal and governmental problems. There's a good chance the recall will leave things in worse shape.

The campaign itself is a diversion from California's problems. And unless the next governor wins this crapshoot with a persuasive vote, he or she is likely to have even less legitimacy than Davis has now. It also will leave him even more beholden to one or more of the interest groups that are funding the three major candidates.

So what are we doing? What offense worthy of recall did Davis commit that he hadn't committed long before California re-elected him less than a year ago? Elections are supposed to be about more than rewarding or punishing politicians.

Davis manipulated the 2002 GOP primary to weaken and ultimately eliminate Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, thought to be potentially his strongest opponent. But he could never have achieved that without the votes of a self-marginalized Republican Party which, with a more moderate candidate, could have beaten Davis handily.

Recall sponsors maintain that Davis concealed the real size of the deficit until after the 2002 election. But everybody underestimated the deficit. Late last September, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill estimated it at $10 billion. GOP candidate Bill Simon predicted $20 billion.

If all our other fix-all voter "revolts" made things so much better, why are we so angry now?