San Francisco ? Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking office with a clear mandate from millions of people in Southern California’s suburbs and the state’s vast interior, where 70 percent of voters favored recalling Gov. Gray Davis.

But liberals are mourning along the state’s northern coast, particularly San Francisco, where 80 percent voted against the recall. In the city that nurtured beatniks in the ’50s and hippies in the ’60s, Schwarzenegger came in a distant second to Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante among the replacement candidates.

Some residents joke darkly about forming a separate state, with San Francisco as the capital. Others are surrendering to reality, moving from denial to acceptance of the Republican actor’s impending move to Sacramento.

Southern Californians voted overwhelmingly to oust the despised Davis and replace him with Schwarzenegger. Nearly three out of four voters in Orange County supported the recall, and Schwarzenegger received 64 percent of the replacement vote, soundly thumping Bustamante’s 17 percent.