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The recall gets real "Everyone there was willing to sign," said Records, a retired state worker and a Republican. "He won by a very slight margin in the second election. If the people had been informed about what he actually did, he never would have made it." Records' petition, as well as thousands of others, now sits in a stuffy Sacramento office near the Capitol, a political boiler room in what's becoming a red-hot crusade to oust Davis. California's first gubernatorial recall election is almost a certainty. Behind the momentum is Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and his willingness to tap his multimillion-dollar personal fortune to obtain the signatures needed to qualify a recall measure. As of Friday, Issa has contributed $800,000 to the effort. The cause once championed on conservative talk radio and the Internet now has a hefty budget, savvy political staff, direct mail and the mounting support of Republican lawmakers. "He needs to be fired," Issa said of Davis. Davis has stated publicly that he will worry about the recall only if it qualifies. But some Democrats are beginning to fight back. An anti-recall group, Taxpayers Against the Recall, has put together its own petition-gathering drive, often showing up outside shopping centers where Republicans are collecting signatures. Recall opponent Joseph Grossberg of Menifee said a recall is a waste of taxpayer money and is meant to oust politicians guilty of egregious malfeasance. The governor isn't to blame for the state's budget crisis, said Grossberg, a Democrat. "It seems to me that Gray Davis did not steal money from the state of California. He didn't defraud the citizens of this state. He didn't shoot anybody, and he did not commit any crimes," Grossberg said. "He might deserve not to be re-elected, but that's another thing." Stacks of signed petitions The recall effort extends from one end of the state to the other. In Sacramento, Republican college students spend their days opening stacks of signed recall petitions. They were mailed to a million Republican voters in recent days. The envelopes also yield stacks of checks and cash. "We've had checks anywhere from $1 to $5,000," said Dave Gilliard, the consultant for Rescue California, one of three recall committees. Rescue California is the group funded by Issa. In an unmarked Newport Beach building, meanwhile, workers verify petitions turned in by professional signature gatherers. They compare the signatures to voter databases before sending them north. All the signatures wind up at the Sacramento headquarters of People's Advocate, the anti-tax group led by Ted Costa, who started the recall. "They pull up here every afternoon with a pickup. Yesterday was 45,000 signatures. Today they tell me there are supposed to be 70,000 to 75,000," Costa said Thursday in a telephone interview. Recall organizers are working to collect 1.2 million signatures, well over the nearly 900,000 they need to qualify a recall measure for the ballot. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's office said it has received 18,590 signatures from counties. Recall organizers, though, said they have collected almost 700,000 signatures, most of which they have not yet turned in. Riverside County's elections office reports having 5,777 recall signatures. San Bernardino County has counted about 9,758, officials said. Recall proponents have been soliciting signatures at The Home Depot on Highway 79 in Temecula, at Riverside's Downtown Wednesday Night and in front of Lowe's home improvement store in Redlands. Issa's run
Meanwhile, Issa is making appearances throughout the state, with stops this weekend
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