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Davis' low marks


July 24, 2003

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businessman Bill Simon, a political neophyte who came within five percentage points of victory.

Davis said he emerged from the close contest humbled -- and the governor vowed to spend his second term listening to Californians.

Instead, Davis was quickly embroiled in the nation's worst budget crisis -- a $38.2 billion budget gap that has created a partisan stalemate over whether to raise taxes or raze social programs.

A gadfly's buzzing

Into the morass stepped Ted Costa, a longtime anti-tax advocate often viewed by state leaders as a quirky relative they had to politely humor. While others mused about tossing Davis from office, Costa drafted a petition and got state officials to give him the green light to try to collect the required 897,158 valid signatures of California voters by Sept. 2 to force a recall vote.

Initially, political observers dismissed Costa's campaign as the fanciful notion of Republicans looking for a second chance to topple Davis.

But Davis took it seriously, bringing in a team of political advisers who tried to short-circuit the campaign by scooping up the state's top signature-gathering firms for his own anti-recall petition. For months, Costa's movement languished -- until Issa stepped forward with $1.7 million to help the anti-Davis forces get out of first gear.

The cash infusion allowed recall forces to hire veteran campaign consultants and recruit hundreds of professional signature-gatherers who fanned out across the state to collect more than 1.6 million signatures -- a stunning number gathered in record time.

Davis seemed to be caught off-guard by the political movement and unable -- or unsure -- of how to slow its momentum.

On the offensive

Having failed to stop signature-gatherers from collecting enough names to qualify the recall vote, Davis' team shifted gears to attack Issa, a conservative with a history of run-ins with the law. Davis allies sought to cast Issa as an anti-abortion rights, extremist gun nut.

If they couldn't stop the vote, Davis allies at least hoped to delay it until March, when Democratic voters are expected to turn out in force for the regularly scheduled presidential primary.

But the attack came too late. Recall leaders exceeded even their own goals and turned in the signatures by mid-July, more than six weeks before the deadline.

In a last-ditch effort to derail the recall, Democratic attorneys rushed into court with allegations that the recall movement had hired professional petition firms with a history of using questionable tactics, and had improperly brought in out-of-state signature-gatherers.

Legal moves blocked

Last week, a Los Angeles judge rebuffed a request by Davis allies to immediately block the count so the courts could review their allegations and set a hearing for Aug. 8. Democrats took their case to the state appeals court, which Wednesday rejected the attempt to block Shelley from certifying the recall election.

Attorneys said they would make one last appeal to the state Supreme Court late Wednesday, but attorney Paul Kiesel said his team would have to re-think its strategy.

``The train has left the station,'' he said. ``Suddenly it's become a far more problematic case than it was.''

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mercury News Staff Writer Elise Banducci contributed to this report. Contact Dion Nissenbaum at dnissenbaum@mercurynews .com or (916) 441-4603.

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