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Davis faces startling handicap - he can't campaign as himself Democrats, who hold a commanding 44-35 percent edge in voter registration, find themselves in a life and death struggle to hold on to the state's top office a mere eight months after sweeping every statewide race. And they're marching toward the Oct. 7 recall election with the prospect of no significant Democratic candidate on the ballot. The strategy - at least so far - has been to bet it all on Gov. Davis' ability to win yet another statewide election. But this race is different, in fact unprecedented. And Davis has a huge handicap - himself.
Widely seen as passive, aloof and arrogant, political experts agree he'll be recalled if he campaigns as Gov. Gray Davis. Reinventing himself overnight would ruin him even faster, spurring dangerously deep cynicism in a very unhappy state, several of California's leading political scientists said in interviews. This week, as Davis became the nation's first governor in 82 years to face a recall election, he instead raced to portray himself as the lesser of evils - a strategy analysts said may improve his roughly even odds of hanging onto his office. But those odds hold only if he continues to face no other major Democratic figures as potential replacements. And it's far from certain whether Democrats can resist putting themselves on what's shaping up as a massive list of contenders. Despite the perils he faces, Davis remains a tough campaigner and survivor who politically savvy types aren't writing off. The 60-year-old career politician - who served as chief of staff to then-Gov. Jerry Brown in the late 1970s - has won statewide office five times, though never in anything like a free-for-all, 10-week campaign. He is attacking the Republican-led effort as a right-wing coup attempt that threatens the liberal lean of the state and Bay Area in particular. He's pointing out the high cost of the special election, a bill that could top $30 million. But he's also acknowledged his own imperfections as he suddenly mixes more with the public. Davis can't hit the campaign trail saying he seized power plants from profiteers, that he sued lawmakers to make them honor their constitutional duty to pass a budget, and that he showed Californians he felt their economic pain. He can't even say he took the recall bid seriously from the Feb. 5 kickoff, although some respected analysts did. Still, the Gray Davis that voters will see in the next 10 weeks will be quite different than the man they re-elected last November. Experts said he never engaged in such bold, warm or humble behavior as he grappled with an energy crisis, a deteriorating economy, a whopping state deficit and sinking popularity in the polls. And recall proponents have forced him onto the defensive about those issues this week. ``He's going to have an extremely difficult time if this election is simply a referendum on Davis,'' said Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College. ``He has a better chance of surviving if it's a choice between Gray Davis and someone he can beat up.'' Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento was even more blunt. ``If the dominant question in the election is to recall Gray Davis or not, then the odds would favor a recall,'' Hodson said.
As state election officials certified that recall proponents had collected more than the necessary 897,158 voter signatures this week, Republican U.S. Rep.
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