Nah, the final straw for Grey Davis was boosting car registrations, after the CA economy collapsed in the dot com bust. He was re-elected after the energy scandal - mostly because the Pubs ran a weak as fuck opponent - my feeling at the time is nobody decent wanted to clean up Davis' mess. Davis was hated by everyone, even the Dems in the state. He was recalled because he was incompetent across the board, he couldn't even be corrupt effectively.

I dimly recall his car registration bullshit had some people paying more for their first year of registration than the down payment. That was the point everyone said "this fuck needs to go." He could have raised taxes on the rich, but instead he fucked EVERYONE over, because he was so deep in the pocket of rich Dems. (and a powerful mobster, according to some.)