Why did California trend liberal?

[Citizen James]

It didn't.  The GOP made a hard turn to the far right.

Mitty and Angus summed it up pretty well.    The golden state has long been fiscially conservative and socially moderate (or liberal, depending on your perspective).   Davis got bounced for many of the same reasons that Bush is unpopular here - he failed to ballance the budget, and he was far too much in the pocket of special interests.

The gop lost a lot of the fence sitters (Including myself) over the afformentioned state party meltdown, the party making social conservitism it's defining nature, and Clinton's fiscially responsible policies.   The manipulation of the energy market by some of Bush good buddies, and his total failure to remedy this crime, probably didn't help much either. 

Were the GOP to nominate a moderate, CA could be in play again.  But with the current domination of the party from the far right, I don't see that as  likely in the near future.

[Citizen James]

The reason California could (will) trend to the center is that hispanics are trending to be a swing group.

The fastest growing counties in the state are GOP strongholds.

Arnold and McClintock, the two Republicans, got 63% of the vote in the recall.  This is nothing to scoff at and democrats scoff at their own peril.

Bush closed the gap against the Democrat this year, in spite of Nader not being on the ballot in 2004.

That's kind of like pointing out that Clinton an Perot got 62% of the vote in '92, and claiming that it means Perot has a majority.

In some ways, Arnold is more socially liberal than his predessesor.  Davis was known for being very tough on crime (at least by California standards), and would almost never grant parole no matter what the parole board says.  Arnold is a lot more prone to following the board's advice.

By the standards of the national GOP Arnold is a clear-cut RINO, tollerated only because of his popularity and position in a major state.