I suppose I'll be less smug when California closes its border to immigration from the other 49 states.

Published: January 16, 2004

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 15 — The state Democratic Party convention was conceived months ago as a victory celebration for a party that was dominating California's electoral politics as it had not since the late 19th century.

But when the convention opens here on Friday there will be considerably more gloom than glory, as Democrats from across the state meet for the first time since Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, became governor two months ago.

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Being a Democrat in Mr. Schwarzenegger's California is taking some getting used to, and there is growing consternation about how the party can distinguish itself in the celebrity glare of the new governor. A poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California showed Mr. Schwarzenegger with a 59 percent approval rating, while the Democratic-controlled Legislature received just 36 percent.

Even as the Democratic convention opens here, Mr. Schwarzenegger is likely to steal the political limelight by endorsing Bill Jones, a former California secretary of state, who is running in the Republican primary for the United States Senate seat occupied by Barbara Boxer, a Democrat.

"After every defeat there is always a struggle within the losing party," said former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, who was removed from office in an October recall election. "When you lose an election, it is time for introspection and to redefine the goals of the party. That process clearly will begin at this convention."

A Republican official in the Schwarzenegger administration suggested that the state's Democrats were in a particular quandary because a past strategy of vilifying Republican governors as right-wing extremists, as happened with Gov. Pete Wilson in the 1990's, would not work this time.

"He is the perfect California moderate," the official said of Mr. Schwarzenegger. "He has a bipartisan administration, his wife comes from a Democratic iconoclastic family, and he has developed relationships with Democratic leaders already."