Once more, California Republicans are mulling which is more important to them: principle or power. Gathered this weekend in Los Angeles for their semiannual convention, the party's activists will play out in miniature the conflict between pragmatism and ideology that's raging among the wider GOP electorate as it faces the recall election.

This is familiar territory for Republicans. In the primary for governor in March 2002, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a liberal Republican, was plainly the GOP candidate with the best chance to beat Gov. Gray Davis. But rivals Bill Simon and Bill Jones were closer to the fervently held beliefs of the party's base voters. With Davis beating on Riordan, GOP voters delivered the nomination to Simon, the truest believer but the candidate least likely to appeal to the broader electorate.

The replacement election in the recall poses a similar choice. State Sen. Tom McClintock is a conservative's conservative, with a well-deserved reputation for standing on principle. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor, is running as the flag bearer of the Pete Wilson wing of the party, which webs social liberalism to the economic agenda of business.
The polls and arithmetic suggest that Republicans, who've been totally shut out of statewide office in recent elections, have slim hope of electing either of those two candidates if they split their votes between them. At a moment when Davis is hanging on the ropes and Democrats in the Legislature have leaned to the left, Republicans have their best opportunity in a decade to seize a chunk of the controlling center in California politics.

The big question in Los Angeles this weekend, and in the recall voting, is whether they will forfeit this rare second chance.