STOP RECALLS STATUTE SHOULD BE JUNKED AFTER VOTE.

Byline: Joseph Honig

IN a matter of weeks it will be over; placards and position papers will be burned or recycled or stuffed in file cabinets with political memorabilia of years gone by. There will be a governor. Maybe a new face. Maybe an old one.

If California's post-recall chief executive is brave and wise, he or she will ask legislators to make sure our electoral circus never again comes to town.

For after the Oct. 7 vote, the gubernatorial recall mechanism should be tossed on the electoral scrap heap. Money, pandering and pop culture have darkened and twisted its intent and purpose. We are all victims.

Long ago, California politics were owned, part and parcel, by the great rail interests. They bought and sold governors and legislation like iron and steel. They decided where people would live and where towns would spring up.

Early trust-busting and antimonopoly forces helped blunt rail baron influence. Then vintage California populists enacted a terribly simple recall statute. As historians recall, it was meant to help ordinary souls strike back at rich and powerful plutocrats.

Recently, an astonishingly wealthy car-alarm mogul, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, spent some $2 million to trigger our populist safeguard. Without Issa's serious money, without paid canvassers and operatives, we probably wouldn't be voting in October.

And did Republican Issa open his wallet unselfishly? For everyone's greater good? For years he dreamed of being governor. You be the judge.

To their credit, Issa's advisers are not stupid. They were smart enough to exploit widespread discontent to their boss's advantage. And Gov. Gray Davis simply made bad decisions in bad times.

However, Issa's $2 million fanned flames that otherwise might have slowly simmered until Davis finished a second term. Arguably, big money, not a grass-roots groundswell, kept the recall ball in play.

It was all the spontaneous dissent millions of dollars could buy. As the late Jesse Unruh, legendary Assembly speaker, was fond of saying, ``Money is the mother's milk'' of government.

In our recall election, it is the skeleton and spine of the body politic.

Some populism.

So now there will be a vote. Hammered by reporters and higher-profile opponents, Issa is no longer a candidate. So who's coming to the dance? Will our recall law, as intended, allow Californians without power and influence to take control in Sacramento?

Hardly.

Because if you set aside Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's candidacy of default - and state. Sen. Tom McClintock's struggling, ill-financed campaign - you are left with four major candidates whose collective net worth may be $1 billion or more. Far more. Even the rail barons didn't have personal fortunes like these. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Simon, Peter Ueberroth and Arianna Huffington are our latest self-appointed citizen saviors.

Rank-and-file Californians taking back their state from arrogant business interests? Who's kidding whom?

Leading candidates to replace Gov. Davis are, in short, taking opportunistic advantage of an antique law whose time has passed. Should a governor prove to be a liar, knave, felon or worse, there is always impeachment. In our fiscally perilous era, the recall statute simply makes it possible for multimillionaires and movie stars to transform anger into high office.

Make no mistake about it. There is a limitless supply of bored, wealthy aristocrats who can - and do - buy their ways into politics. Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., paid $60 million for his desk in the Capitol.

Former Democratic mogul Michael Bloomberg switched parties in a heartbeat, then spent a similar amount to win New York City's mayoralty. If they lived here and wanted to be governor, both Corzine and Bloomberg might not even have to wait for an election year. California shows us that money guides political frustration - always with us to some degree - into recall elections.

Our governor - Gray Davis or his replacement - should come out swinging against this terrible, outdated recall statute. It makes disappointed voters feel temporarily better but demeans the electoral process. And future politicians with convictions, leaders taking unpopular positions for the greater good, might eventually need some term insurance.