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Party's projected unity frays as deadline nears With a Saturday candidate filing deadline looming, 17 of 25 Democratic state senators met privately in Sacramento to debate whether the party should abandon a Gray Davis-or-bust strategy that offers no backup if the governor is recalled. In San Francisco, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer said Democrats should field a replacement candidate if polls show Davis will lose his job. She said she will determine by Friday if she thinks another Democrat should run. "The strategy of defeating the recall is a very good strategy," she said. "I want to make sure it's working before the time is over that somebody (else) can run." The Oct. 7 recall election will pose two questions to voters: Whether to oust Davis and who should replace him if he is unseated. Concern about recent poll results and about potential candidates lining up to replace Davis prompted the state senators' meeting, said Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland. "If it's a campaign about Gray Davis, we lose. I think it's pretty clear," Perata said. "What I am reflecting is that there are people who believe we might be better served opposing the recall and providing a viable alternative, an alternative Democrat who can win." Some congressional Democrats have been pressing for just that, urging U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to run. Among those in that camp is U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, who said Monday there is substantial support for the strategy. "There are more people being public," Sanchez said. "I know that there are state senators that privately have agreed with me." State Senate Democrats reached no decision Monday and plan to revisit the issue this week. Some senators will talk with Feinstein and with the anti-recall campaign, Perata said. Feinstein political adviser Kam Kuwata predicted she will not enter the race. "I believe that at 5 o'clock on Saturday there will not be a major Democrat on the ticket," he said. Only then will Davis be able to mount a strong campaign, Kuwata said. "No longer will you be saying, 'Maybe if this person runs.' Everyone will be focused on defeating the recall." In what one analyst saw as a sign of the governor's weakness, Davis asked the state Supreme Court on Monday to delay the election until March and allow him to be a replacement candidate for his own job. "It smacks of desperation," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, University of Southern California political scientist. "It is a signal, at least to me, that the governor is not certain he's going to beat this recall." The governor's courtroom gambit could pay off, Jeffe said. But Davis also risks appearing to thwart the will of voters and to be conceding he has no chance of winning the recall vote. It's unclear how the high court, which has set a 9 a.m. Thursday deadline to receive briefs in the unprecedented case, will act. The court might decide Davis lacks legal standing to ask that he be allowed to be a replacement candidate, said Vikram Amar, a Hastings College of Law professor. State law and the constitution seem to give the obscure Commission on the Governorship exclusive authority to pose questions about gubernatorial vacancies and succession, Amar said. "I think that (Davis' request) arguably involves a question of 'vacancy or succession.'" The same issue could trip up three other recall matters pending before the Supreme Court, Amar said. Two aim to block a replacement election from appearing on the recall ballot, leaving Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as governor if voters boot Davis. The third challenges rules for qualifying as a replacement candidate.
The Commission on the Governorship took center
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