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Democrats Criticize Governor, Join Race August 08, 2003 Page 2 told the Los Angeles Times that Schwarzenegger's decision to run had blindsided Riordan. The fallout from Schwarzenegger's surprise announcement kept senior Democrats busy on the telephone throughout the day. Bustamante, whose feuds with Davis are Sacramento lore, worked to engineer an endorsement from Hispanic elected officials. His supporters quietly made the case that Bustamante will have the resources to battle a movie star thanks to wealthy backers in the Indian casino-gambling industry. Bustamante's claim that he would continue to oppose the recall effort vigorously, even as he presented himself as an alternative to Davis, landed with a thud among the party elders who had tried to hold the line. "To say, vote no on the recall -- but, by the way, here's another option -- that's just a very politically difficult message to get behind, to say the least," said P.J. Johnston, Brown's press secretary. "With unity, we at least had a shot at the winning message that once again, Republicans are trying to steal an election they couldn't win otherwise. Now the waters are muddied." Some Davis advisers now think that the muddier the waters get, the better, in hopes that the very turmoil of the recall drama will ultimately move voters to stick with the governor they know rather than venture into a wild unknown. In that sense, it was a great day for Davis -- nothing but turmoil. The scorecard: The movie star is in. The lieutenant governor is in. The car-alarm magnate, Issa, is out. The millionaire Huffingtons, former congressman Michael and his former wife, columnist Arianna -- out and in, respectively. Peter Ueberroth, former baseball commissioner and chief organizer of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, circulated petitions yesterday and is likely to announce his candidacy today, an associate said. Ueberroth, now an investment company manager, is a registered Republican but plans to run as an independent and would appoint a bipartisan administration, the associate said. Anyone willing to pay $3,500 and able to collect 65 signatures can qualify for the ballot, and so far that includes a Los Angeles woman who hawks thong underwear, as well as pornographer Larry Flynt. The deadline for declaring a candidacy is Saturday evening. If Davis is removed from office, his successor will be the top vote-getter from a sprawling field -- even if that person falls far short of a majority. "With Bustamante and Garamendi getting in, you have an electorate so fragmented that even if voters are responsible, it's possible a candidate could win with 15 or 20 percent -- and that someone could be Arnold," said Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "We all now have our parts to play in his latest fantasy adventure," Kaplan said of Schwarzenegger. "Celebrity is a hurricane, a force of nature, and we're powerless to resist." A media swarm surrounded the actor at his first news conference as a candidate. Schwarzenegger spoke in broad terms about improving the business environment in California to address the state's enormous budget deficit. He promised "a plan very soon, a detailed plan" to cut state spending, while at the same time speaking of improving education and other services. Democrats wasted no time in attacking Schwarzenegger as a lightweight. "Normally there is time for the public and the press corps to vet candidates to find out what they know about water policy and workers' comp and testing in schools and . . . an enormous panoply of issues," said Phil Trounstine, a former spokesman for Davis. "With this compressed schedule, the political writers of California have an enormous responsibility to question Arnold Schwarzenegger."
In Crawford, Tex., political advisers
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