The California Stakes

Here’s Opinion Journal on Gray Davis’ failure of leadership:

Mr. Davis, we should acknowledge, did not start out on this same left-wing course. For a couple of years he rode the dot-com boom and governed from the middle, as these columns noted with approval. But then the energy crisis hit, and rather than tell voters the truth he embraced his party's anti-business base to survive. The result has been spending that has climbed 40% in four years, a $38 billion budget deficit, and business and energy costs that have caused tens of thousands to flee the state.

The negative population growth in California is a devastating statistic for Davis. Businesses and people don’t leave when everything’s fine.