That's because America's elites - and California's in particular - are liberals who believe in bigger government, higher taxes, more regulations. Promote an idea that threatens that tax-spend-regulate status quo, and the howls of protest begin.

In 1978, California voters rejected the dire predictions of the state's newspapers and politicians and voted for Proposition 13, which limited the increases in property taxes that were driving people out of their homes and imposed two-thirds voting requirements for the passage of most bonds and tax increases.

How do we know Prop. 13 struck paydirt?

Twenty-five years later, media pundits, legislators and academics are still whining about it, blaming it for every bad thing that ever happened in California from heinous crimes to crumbling infrastructure. But the public knows better, and still strongly backs Prop. 13's provisions.

Another Prop. 13-style revolt is shaping up in California. And judging by the cries and moans of editorialists and politicians, one would think the world is coming to an end. But this is good news. Their upset is a sign that something serious is taking place.

Exhausted by Gov. Gray Davis' outright incompetence in the face of the electricity and budget crises, his legally dubious tripling of the car tax by administrative fiat, and his continued willingness to chase businesses out of state by signing Euro-socialist-style legislation, California voters have flocked to signature-gathering tables to back a proposed recall election of the governor.

A statewide poll released earlier this month showed 51 percent of likely voters backing the recall - a definite sign that the governor is toast. But the governor, and his Democratic allies, are not about to sacrifice the state's top office gracefully. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, the partisan San Francisco Democrat who is politicizing an office that was run professionally and fairly by Republican Bill Jones, is purposefully delaying the certification of the recall.

Recall backers have stopped collecting signatures, given that their total numbers are expected to hit 1.5 million. That is far in excess of the required 897,158.

The secretary of state should work to certify the numbers and schedule the election for November, as specified by state law.

Instead, Shelley has been telling county recorders, in effect, to slow the process in the hopes of delaying the recall vote until March 2004 - during a presidential primary that will bring out higher numbers of Democratic voters likely to oppose a recall of a Democratic governor.

Meanwhile, the governor's allies are threatening legal action to halt the recall campaign based on technicalities.

Davis supporters are arguing that the out-of-state signature gatherers and Internet petitions used by recall supporters somehow violate state election law. Their arguments probably won't stand up in court, but could delay a vote until March.

Davis might be the least popular governor in California history, but he also is one of the most ruthless when it comes to winning and retaining his office. Even if his allies delay the election, they will be hard-pressed to stop the brewing revolt.

We can see the frustration everywhere: frustration at fleeing jobs, higher taxes, unrelenting regulations, mounting budget deficits, crumbling infrastructure and poor public services.

Meanwhile, as doubling and tripling workers' compensation costs drive businesses to Utah and Arizona, the governor sits motionless. The Legislature, controlled by liberal Democrats, is oblivious to the budget crisis, and is still proposing a steady diet of increased spending, higher taxes and special favors for their union and trial lawyer benefactors.

So a new Prop. 13-style revolt unfolds. Republican legislators have gotten matters rolling with their admirable stand against new taxes. There's an initiative pushed forward by Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Simi Valley, to completely eliminate the car tax. And then the main event - the recall election - will move ahead, regardless of how hard the Democrats try to stay on the sinking Davis ship.

This is the real thing, not just some bipartisan deal to "fix" things that really fixes nothing. Like clockwork, the opinion makers are making fun of the voters.

Wrote Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times, recounting the actions of a typical recall signer: "The recall supporter had just done what passes for civic duty in California - he had signed a petition. But he had not thought beyond the cheap satisfaction of the act, and so he stood there with his mouth open, looking dumber than ham."

Yep, recall signers are just rubes who aren't smart enough to think about what we are doing. Or, perhaps, most of us have thought it through - and realize that a few more years of business as usual would doom this state to Third World status.

Expect more of the same highbrow putdowns.

Expect "responsible" voices to warn against the impact of the recall on the state's bond rating, as if an election is more threatening than the current fiscal policies pursued in Sacramento.

Expect more columnists to argue that the real solution to California's crisis is to reduce the supermajority needed to pass budgets from two-thirds to 55 percent - so Democrats can simply fill any budget gap by raising taxes at will.

Don't pay them any mind.

In his book "The Legend of Proposition 13," Joel Fox, former aide to Prop. 13 leader Howard Jarvis, reminds us that "[f]olklore is the people's story. ... The people have a different view on what happened with Proposition 13, which is often ignored by professors and newspaper writers."

Perhaps a new folk story is in the making, about how ordinary Californians, in defiance of elite opinion, took back their state from the socialists and lunatics.

It's our story to write, regardless of what the professors and pundits have to say.