Recalled California Gov. Gray Davis didn’t waste time in sending a message to Democrats cheering about Sen. Arlen Specter doing the ol’ party swap.

“That’s excellent,” he told the San Francisco Chornicle’s Spin Cycle Blog, and then he offered some advice from a politician who knows first hand about “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

Yes, Democrats, heed the advice of Gray Davis. It’s not that the people will overwhelmingly reject your incompetence, it’s just that the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” will hit you.

Only a self-absorbed, delusional fool would think that it was mere “fortune” that put the nail in Davis’ political coffin. And only such a fool would think the GOP’s challenge to Specter and the conservative backlash against the Obama economic agenda is anything similar.

Let’s recall (pun intended) that Gray Davis created his own misfortune — by passing bogus state budgets (with the help of Democrats in the state Legislature), calling them balanced, skating to re-election, and then crying “crisis” when the books didn’t balance.

When he took office, the state of California was running a budget surplus of $15 billion. Instead of giving that money back to the people, investing in one-time projects such as new roads or schools or simply stashing it away for a rainy day, Davis oversaw an alarming expansion of the state government. Ultimately, he was the father of a $38 billion budget deficit in 2003, and voters justifiably fired him.

All of that could have been avoided. During his last four years in office, California’s combined rate of inflation and population growth was 21 percent and state revenues increased by 28 percent. All should have been good — the state was taking in money at a greater rate than it was growing. But no, government spending ballooned by 36 percent; eight points ahead of revenue and 15 points ahead of growth. Davis lacked the fortitude to look out for the state’s long-term, financial interests (this is not say the goon we replaced Davis with has done any better).

But, according to Davis, it was “outrageous fortune” that did him in.

I’m always conscious that we live in a cyclical world. You’re up one day, and you’re down another. So people shouldn’t get carried away thinking about their good fortune.

The tide goes in, the tide goes out. Times change, attitudes change. …

It’s great news for now — but no one should get complacent.

One would think Davis would know by now that you can’t spend taxpayer money like crazy, bankrupt the government and get away with it. One could guess that Davis would warn the party against exploding the size of government, especially during a recession.

But no. His advice is to not get too excited.

Specter himself admitted that his vote for the stimulus package was the tipping point, prompting a conservative to offer a serious challenge in the Republican primary that Specter would likely have lost.

Specter, like Davis, hasn’t learned that you can only run-up the taxpayers’ tab for so long before they start to notice.

Assuming Al Franken takes the Minnesota seat, Specter gives the Democrats the filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate (62 if you count Sens. Collins and Snowe) — so it’s all on them. As Obama pushes through his government expanding plans in the arenas of education, health care and energy, they won’t be able to shift the blame onto anyone else.

And as taxpayers begin to realize the bill for those programs is one we can’t afford, perhaps Specter can sit down with Gray Davis and ask him whom they will hold accountable.