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Posted on 09/29/2003 9:18:15 AM PDT by Pokey78
ELECTIONS, like warfare, come down to turning points. And should Governor Gray Davis go down in flames a week from tomorrow, remember last Friday as the pivotal moment in California's recall election. The event was a West Hollywood rally for women voters. His guest of honor was former Texas governor Ann Richards (talk about the B-list), plus a phone call from Hillary Rodham Clinton, who tried to pump up the estrogen by predicting "California is not going to be stampeded by the same right-wingers who gave us the election in Florida and are trying to do things that are really against our interests."
Unfortunately for Davis, he chose that moment to have his own hormonal surge, daring Arnold Schwarzenegger to go one-on-one. "I'm not going to take it anymore," Davis said, alleging the Arnold is distorting his record. "Right here, right now, I challenge him to a debate."
Davis's challenge was deliciously hypocritical. Last fall, he refused to debate Republican challenger Bill Simon a second time; in the 1998 governor's race, he backed out of a fifth and final debate with Dan Lungren. And hypocrisy aside, Schwarzenegger would probably win a one-on-one encounter as Davis would find it hard to resist being condescending or creepy. Remember, this is the same governor who's ridiculed Ah-nold's accent and has suggested that Republicans would sooner shoot their mothers than pass a tax hike. Alone, in a debate forum with Schwarzenegger, Davis is bound to have at least one political Tourette's moment.
But what distinguishes last Friday's event is how quickly it changed media perception--to the governor's detriment. Before challenging Arnold to a debate, Davis had spun most beat reporters into believing that he was closing the gap on recall's first question, and that Republicans were too badly divided to win the second half of the ballot. But once he called out Arnold, conventional wisdom was tossed out the window. In the closing days of a campaign, issuing a debate challenge is an act of weakness--a very public sign that a candidate doesn't have momentum.
Indeed, over the week, poll after poll underscored Davis's enfeebled standing:
*Yesterday's CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll has Davis losing recall a whopping 63 percent to 35 percent. On the second question, Schwarzenegger led the field with 40 percent, followed by Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante at 25 percent and Republican State Senator Tom McClintock at 18 percent.
*A survey released Friday by the California Chamber of Commerce also has Davis behind, this time a more manageable 53 percent to 41 percent. On the second half of the ballot: 35 percent for Arnold, 31 percent for Bustamante, 17 percent for McClintock.
*Then there are the internal polls, which the public never gets to see. Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle reported "overnight tracking numbers from both the Democratic and GOP camps" showing yes-on-recall holding between 52 percent and 54 percent, while the no vote caps out at 44 percent. The Sacramento Bee's Dan Weintraub reports that the California Teachers Association has private polls showing the no vote even lower, around 41 or 40 percent.
What this means for Davis is that while the fat lady hasn't sung, she isn't far offstage and is looking for her spear and helmet. The Democratic governor is, in effect, battling two sets of bad numbers: the no-on-recall vote, which refuses to budge above 44 percent despite Davis making all sorts of appeals to the left (the West Hollywood rally, for example, was meant to convince Democrats that Arnold was a woman-hater); and there's Davis' poor performance last fall, when he garnered only 47 percent of the vote against a weak challenger. Maybe Davis can move up three percentage points this week to where he was last fall, but what will it take to make that final push above 50 percent?
For now, Davis has a two-part strategy: diss Arnold and distance himself from Bustamante.
ON FRIDAY, the governor also unveiled his first negative ad against Schwarzenegger, accusing the actor of not having his budget facts straight and being a derelict voter: "He has no experience, won't answer press questions, won't debate unless he has the questions in advance," the ads says. "And he didn't even bother to vote in 13 of the last 21 elections."
The governor is getting a little help from the usual suspects on the left. His Friday women's rally was crashed by Duf Sundheim, chairman of the California Republican party. Sundheim, in turn, was confronted by the legal gadfly Gloria Allred, who represents Amber Frey, the "other woman" in the Scott Peterson murder trial. While the Republican chairman tried to sell reporters on the idea that pro-choice Arnold is a good candidate for women, Allred held up a sign for the cameras, reminding viewers of the candidate's now-infamous Oui magazine interview: "From Gloria to Arnold, Gang Bangs of 'Black Girls' Are No Joke." And she added her own sound to the picture. "What about this?" Allred screeched. "What about the gang bang remark by Arnold? What about the gang bang remark by Arnold?"
As for Bustamante, the Davis campaign has apparently decided that the lieutenant governor is a weak kitten--and isn't shy about sharing this view with reporters. Paul Maslin, Davis's pollster, calls Bustamante a "crippled candidate" and says he's "99 percent sure" that Schwarzenegger will win the second half of the vote. The governor's pollster is even dumping on his fellow partisans for putting a fallback candidate on the ballot. "We tried to warn everybody," Maslin told reporters. "We tried to warn all these genius Democrats. We'll have to win it the hard way."
Here's what has Maslin and the Davis camp steaming: At present, about 20 percent of Democrats plan to vote for the recall--if that number holds, Davis is toast. However, they're not sold on the unimpressive Bustamante, who pulls down just 49 percent of the Democratic vote in the last poll by the Public Policy Institute of California--and that was before his lackluster showing in last week's debate.
Complicating things for Davis is that Bustamante does not plan to go away quietly. On Friday, the same day the governor went after Arnold, the lieutenant governor went on the air with a new ad bemoaning the more than 120,000 students forced out of community colleges by higher tuition bills. "Their fees are going up," Bustamante says in the ad. "Their classes are being cut. That's not the California our parents left us. Our colleges should be open to every qualified student."
Three guesses as to the target of that ad. (Hint: it's not Schwarzenegger or McClintock.)
Michael
ROFL!! How true!!
plus a phone call from Hillary Rodham Clinton, who tried to pump up the estrogen by predicting "California is not going to be stampeded by the same right-wingers who gave us the election in Florida and are trying to do things that are really against our interests."
Our interests?? I thought Hillary! (tm) was a "native New Yorker."
It should be highly amusing to watch the interaction between Arnold and Bustamante after the recall election. Does the CA Lt. Governor have any real power (as in Texas) or is he just a figurehead (as in most states)?
Cruz Bustamante will never, ever, ever resign no matter what. He will stay and be a thorn in the new governor's side for as long as humanly possible. Etiquette?? You seem to forget that Bustamante is the man who continues to publicly defy the law and a court order to stop the illegal anti-Prop 54 ads. This is also the guy who has no respect for immigration law and no respect for earning his college degree honestly. He won't step down.
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