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More than 150 file for unprecedented governor recall election Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, under pressure from fellow party members, dropped out two hours before the deadline to file papers, leaving Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as the only prominent Democrat on the ballot. That raised hopes of keeping the governor's office in party hands if the unpopular governor is voted out Oct. 7. "The Democratic Party is united around the slogan that I introduced Thursday morning _ no on recall, yes on Bustamante," Bustamante said. "For the next 59 days, I will work as hard as I can on both parts of that campaign slogan." If voters turn Davis out of office, Bustamante will compete against a field that includes last year's gubernatorial runner-up, Bill Simon, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former baseball czar Peter Ueberroth, all Republicans, and columnist Arianna Huffington, an independent. The secretary of state reported late Saturday that 155 candidates had filed papers by the 5 p.m. deadline. The field consists of ordinary Californians, such as a school teacher, a bail bondsman and a 100-year-old woman, and less ordinary ones such as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Donald A. Novello, a comedian who since the 1970s has played Father Guido Sarducci, a chain-smoking spoof of a Catholic priest. Novello gathered signatures at grocery stores, although he said he didn't wear his Father Guido Sarducci costume. Occasionally, however, people recognized the character from his voice. "It's a lot easier to get signatures when they do," he said. Despite the onslaught of wannabes aiming to run the most populous state, Davis remained confident Saturday. "Many people are trying to become the governor. I am the governor," Davis said to laughter after a bill signing at a health clinic in Santa Monica. "Whether the people of the state want me to stay 60 days or three-and-a-half years _ as hopefully they will eventually decide - I am going to do my level best to improve their lives every day I have." A new Time/CNN poll released Saturday, however, showed voters leaning toward recalling Davis. Fifty-four percent said they would vote Davis out, while 35 percent were opposed. Of the better-known candidates, 25 percent chose Schwarzenegger, 15 percent chose Bustamante, while others were in single digits. The poll of 508 voters was conducted Friday and has an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Davis has seen his approval ratings plummet in recent months. He is the first governor of the Golden State to face a recall election, which took fewer than 1 million voters to put it on the ballot. Voter anger has been building since the state's 2000-2001 energy crisis. Since then, Californians have witnessed the decline of the state's technology sector and a record $38 billion budget deficit, which triggered a tripling of the vehicle tax, forced college fees to rise as much as 30 percent and has threatened state employees with layoffs and pay cuts. If the campaign against him succeeds, Davis would be only the nation's second governor to be recalled. In 1921, North Dakota voters ousted Gov. Lynn Frazier. The final casting call for America's political blockbuster unfolded Saturday, as more than a quarter of the 505 people that Secretary of State's office said took out applications to run turned in the papers to get on the burgeoning ballot.
Schwarzenegger arrived at the Los Angeles County recorder's office with his wife, Maria Shriver, to the shrieks of gawkers. He vowed to be the people's governor as
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