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Davis recall drive signs 'em up As serious shoppers got a jump-start Friday on Memorial Day sales, Hicks was raking in at least $30 an hour, 75 cents at a time, as a signature-gatherer paid to ask Californians to support a campaign to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis only months into his second term. There are plenty of places in this state -- San Francisco, Los Angeles, even Sacramento -- where the odds are such a solicitation of strangers would trigger a string of epithets or maybe a swing of the fist. Not so at the spot Hicks carefully staked out with his folding table and petitions, near the entrance to the Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse in Roseville, a burgeoning Republican enclave. Ruddy-cheeked from the heat, the slender, affable young man in a crisp white T-shirt and tan shorts was a hit with hundreds of customers who emerged from the store's sliding glass doors with new grills and flowering shrubs in tow. "Sign against Gray Davis?" was his simple pitch. "Let me at it," said one elderly shopper, casting aside his cart and darting over to Hicks' table. "I'd sign, but I already did," offered a middle-aged man in a corporate golf shirt, throwing in a smile and a thumbs-up. Homeowner Terry Duarte had two dozen sets of new window blinds to hang and holiday cooking to be done, but stopped to add her name to one of Hicks' petitions. "Can I sign five more?" she asked. Recall supporters hope to use the long weekend to make up for lost time. Organizers say about 300 paid circulators will be out statewide through Monday. The push to oust Davis began in February, with critics blaming him for a state budget shortfall that has swelled to $38.2 billion. But its volunteer organizers, an anti-tax activist and a conservative Republican former assemblyman, lacked money to pay for professional help. In 31 previous attempts, never has a recall against a California governor succeeded, and this effort seemed unlikely to meet a September deadline for collecting nearly 900,000 signatures of voter support needed to place the recall on a ballot. Enter Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican multimillionaire from San Diego County with eyes on the governorship. Issa has provided the seed money -- his $100,000 donation two weeks ago grew to $445,000 by Friday -- to launch a third group. That group, Rescue California, is being directed by Republican campaign consultant David Gilliard, who has arranged for paid petition circulators like Hicks. While recall supporters at first reached out to Democrats, they have at least temporarily abandoned the bipartisan spirit. Instead, they are looking to places like Placer County, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 52 percent to 31 percent, to help them reach the magic number -- 897,158 signatures -- in time. The California secretary of state's office is expected to report the first official tally of signatures received to date on Tuesday. Voters who stopped to sign Hicks' petitions Friday blamed Davis for just about everything they didn't like about living in California: expensive housing, the quality of public schools, anti-smoking policies, the current budget crisis, the energy crisis of two years ago and increasing fees for car registration and college tuition. After talking to Hicks, Andrew and Vicki Taylor and their 18-year-old daughter, Valerie, said they might work for him as subcontractors, at 55 cents a signature. Valerie Taylor blamed Davis for higher fees at the college where she'll start in the fall, and said she could use all the extra money she can get.
Hicks said he fell into the job accidentally. A former Washington state
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