Exactly one year from today, California voters will pretend that electing a new governor will somehow improve their chronically ineffective state government.

They will cast ballots after hearing months of competing claims from contenders, first in the run up to the vernal primary election and then in the autumnal duel between primary survivors, that they can succeed where other recent governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, have abjectly failed.

The political situation changed sharply Friday when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, badly trailing Democratic rival Jerry Brown in both fundraising and popularity, dropped out. There is some speculation about other Democrats (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Jane Harman?) entering the fray, but barring that, Brown, a former two-term governor and current attorney general, is now the heavy, albeit not prohibitive, favorite.

With Newsom gone, Brown can take the uber-liberal activists in his party, who have been leery of his flexible ideological positioning, for granted and continue to hew to a more centrist line on crime and taxes that appeals to independent voters.