 |
 -0 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
Davis taking recall seriously The Republican drive to recall Gov. Gray Davis, which once seemed impossibly far-fetched, has suddenly turned into an all-out campaign. Recall advocates have raised more than half a million dollars for their drive to put Davis on the ballot again. And Wednesday, underscoring the growing threat to Davis, a coalition of his most loyal supporters announced that it is prepared to spend up to $4 million to derail the ouster attempt. ``The people behind the campaign to recall Gov. Davis wear their partisan motives right out on their sleeves. An election was held. They lost, and now they want a `do-over,' '' declared Dan Terry, president of the California Professional Firefighters. The scene at the anti-recall press conference on a hot afternoon outside a Sacramento fire station offered an ugly glimpse of what voters might see as this improbable campaign unfolds. Terry could barely be heard over the din of pro- and anti-Davis forces shouting competing slogans through bullhorns. Terry is spearheading the anti-recall campaign along with environmentalists, church groups and other labor unions -- interests that want to see Democrat Davis finish his term. The coalition hopes to persuade voters not to sign pro-recall petitions, noting that an election will cost taxpayers at least $25 million. Lining up on the dump-Davis side are anti-tax crusaders, a former Republican assemblyman who's making recall petitions available on the Internet and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who is bankrolling much of the effort. While tempers flared in Sacramento over the recall effort, Davis was breaking ground for the new Morongo Band of Mission Indians casino in Riverside County. At the event, Davis praised Terry and his firefighters. ``They believe in fair play,'' he said, ``and they think people are trying to come through the back door when they couldn't come through the front door.'' Fueling the drive to dump Davis is his continuing unpopularity prompted by the $38.2 billion budget deficit and the energy crisis of 2000. If Davis critics gather 900,000 valid signatures of registered voters by Sept. 2, a recall vote would be held late this year or at the same time as the March 2004 primary. Voters simultaneously would decide on a new governor. If Davis is recalled, the winner of the second ballot question would become governor. This free-wheeling winner-take-all format -- which has its roots in the Progressive reforms of the early 20th century -- is fueling talk that just a few months ago would have been unbelievable. Publicly, the Democratic Party establishment is lining up behind Davis, but privately campaign consultants can't stop themselves from chattering about the endless possibilities. Under one scenario, liberal lion John Burton, the state Senate leader from San Francisco with a large campaign war chest, could be the compromise choice of Democrats. In another, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein would be the consensus candidate of the Democrats. A Feinstein spokesman says the state's senior senator stands behind Davis. On the GOP side, the talk includes a rerun by Bill Simon as well as a bid by Issa, who has pumped in $445,000 of his own money to support the recall. Also rumored to have an interest are actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the former provost of Stanford University. Recall proponents so far have turned in just 18,590 of the required signatures, but they predict they'll have the petitions ready to turn in this summer.
Gale Kaufman, a Democratic consultant, is skeptical. ``They are building momentum in the press with no real evidence other than anecdotal that they are collecting
|
|
|
