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Recall booster finds fuel The Davis recall campaigns were thin on cash and thick on bickering. They did not start gathering signatures until late March, and the country was enmeshed in talk of war, and later, the war itself. Recall backers say the Bush administration refused to back the Davis recall, saying it would sap money from the 2004 re-election campaign. The state GOP was tapped for cash and cold on the idea. Republican leaders in the Legislature warned against it. What recall supporters needed was a sugar daddy. Issa plunks down cash Darrell Issa was weighing his options. It was late February, and at the state Republican convention, recall talk bubbled. Most thought Issa, a conservative junior congressman from Southern California, was aiming for Sen. Barbara Boxer's seat in 2004. Issa, who made his millions in car alarms, spent almost $10 million in his 1998 bid for the Senate. He lost the primary to then-Treasurer Matt Fong, whose campaign adviser was Sal Russo. Two weeks before the convention, Kaloogian met with Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Temecula, at a sushi restaurant in Sacramento. Haynes jumped into the recall campaign, then tapped Issa at the convention. Issa needed little prodding. "He said, 'What do you think it's going to take to make it go?'" said Haynes. "I said $2.5 million. He said, 'What do you think would be the potential that I would be the one to be the (GOP) choice for governor?' I told him if you put $2.5 million in, you will be the front-runner. There's a whole bunch who want this thing to go. You will be their hero." Issa took almost two months to commit publicly, announcing his pledge after returning from a two-week trip to the Middle East. He formed Rescue California, the third recall group. Issa said he refused to entrust his money to the others. "Both organizations said, give me some money and we will get the governor recalled," said Issa. "I didn't know either organization very well. I know Sal Russo, and I don't trust him." Issa has given more than $1.1 million to the recall, funding a full-scale campaign of direct mail and paid signature-gatherers. He also has spent $600,000 to launch a campaign to be the Republican choice on the same ballot if the recall vote succeeds. "No one took it seriously. What it needed was rocket fuel. The rocket fuel was Issa," said Sean Walsh, a Republican strategist. Others had shown interest in the recall. Simon, who lost to Davis by five percentage points, appears eager to run, but figured if he wrote a check, it would look like sour grapes. Arnold Schwarzenegger's advisers called to see if Issa's pledge was real, said Kaloogian. The Hollywood action man, whose political ambitions grow brawnier every day, never offered cash. "I think he was considering running for governor in his five-year plan," said Kaloogian. "I think the recall caught him by surprise." Issa understands the downside: If his money does not buy him front-runner status, he could quickly become a crash-test dummy in a high-risk recall drive. Last month, a string of allegations resurfaced about Issa's early brushes with the law, including car theft charges that he blames on his brother, and illegal weapons charges dating to the 1970s. Issa remains the only declared candidate and said he would not mind some company. Other hopefuls may wait for Issa, who is anti-gun control and anti-abortion, to flame out under the hot lights of an aggressive Davis attack. Among them: Simon, Schwarzenegger and conservative state Sen. Tom McClintock, the Republican who came closest to winning statewide office in November, losing the controller's race.
"I'm the only one taking the slings and arrows
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