1.823 million vote 'no' and Bustamante only has 1.2 million votes?????

Bustamante was a sucky candidate who never, at any time in the poling on the road to the election, climbed much above his 30%.

Bad candidate.

Nothing against the man, I like his politics, but you need a real heavy hitter to stand next the to the star power and buzz making machine that was behind Swastika-banger.

...but he was just outshined and couldn't attract any voters outside of that 30%. I have nothing against the man either (he was very engaging in the debates, and was clear and direct in answering questions).

He couldn't connect with voters. His 30% isn't bad - he just never even threatened to expand beyond that.

...in the "debate" he said he was ok with giving undocumented/illegal/whatever-you-want-to-term-them immigrants drivers licenses. At that point, you really couldn't tell the difference between him and the Green Party candidate.

I was in his camp (still gave him the nod), but I did so *in spite* of that fact.

He probably lost votes solely on the drivers license issue...but what do I know?

a lot of Californians hate immigrants. except for Arnold.

Which is a thorouly unappealing quality in a Democratic candidate.

I agree with most of what he's for, and I voted for him but I did it out of party strategy. There is something smarmy and condescending about him and I thought he did a terrible job of selling his ideas.

I got a few emails from politically unastute friends with the "Mexifornia" driver's license parody. I never had a good grasp on the pros and cons of it, but since I generally favor treating the migrant laborers who make it possible for us to have plentiful, cheap food well, I didn't worry that much about it, but obviously lots of people did. It's kind of pathetic how many people don't know that migrant workers and other undocumented workers do a lot of work we want done but don't want to do ourselves, and that helping them isn't a free money giveaway to those who don't deserve it. I know the Repubes frame it that way, but sheesh, how hard it is to THINK?

That driver's license issue ignores party lines. It may have pissed off just enough people to sink Bustamante.

Not even going into the immigration double-standard (Cubans ok - Haitians not...Mexcians ok - Haitians not), the license idea just did not and will not go over well with the average American. They never gave a good reason for it, other than "they are already here contributing to society". If I steal money from a bank (AKA coming here illegally) and then donate it all to charity (AKA working for next to nothing thanks to shady business/immigration practices) that doesn't make the act ok. Reform the immigration policy and/or make the undocumented folks legal, then we can talk.

Like McClintock (I believe) said, by giving undocumented folks legal recognition (driver's license), you are letting them "cut in line" ahead of people who go through the process to immigrate into this country legally.