Now We Know Why Davis Won’t Debate

Apparently, I was one of the few Californians listening to Monday’s debate between Governor Gray Davis and GOP nominee Bill Simon. I tried hard to find a replay on television that evening but couldn’t locate one anywhere. Late night TV news coverage was scanty. This must have been the least noticed gubernatorial debate in state history. (Simon’s campaign has posted the debate online. To see it, go to: http://www.simonforgovernor.com/debate.php)

Which, of course, was Davis’s strategy: hold the debate on a local TV station, mid-day, when people are working. No major networks would give up prime, evening air time for a debate replay. Given Californians’ general apathy these days, this ensures a tiny audience so no matter what happens, there’s no impact on the race.

Cynical? Yes. Manipulative? Yes. Successful? You bet it was. Outside of political junkies, I know only a handful that heard or saw any part of the debate.

Clearly, the deck was stacked against Simon. The Los Angeles Times, now practically functioning as an arm of the Davis campaign, was debate sponsor. The event was held at local TV station KTLA, owned by the Times’ parent company, The Tribune Company. Two Times staff members were panelists, including editorial page editor Janet Clayton and political pundit George Skelton, who recently proclaimed Simon “the worst gubernatorial candidate in California history.” Other panel members were old TV news pro Hal Fishman and Randy Shandobil, an obscure TV political editor from Oakland and ostensible environmentalist. How he got invited is anybody’s guess.

Anyway, this is what passes for a fair panel at the Times: three liberals and a neutral moderator. The questions posed reflected this bias — virtually every one asked why government wasn’t doing more to solve our collective problems.

Davis’s fear of Simon was well-founded. Any fair-minded observer (this leaves out most members of California’s major media) would say Simon was the stronger, more articulate debater. He put the governor on the defensive about his disastrous record of mishandling the electricity crisis, the state budget, and a collapsing public education system. He hit Davis hard on a key weakness: his weird obsession with fundraising, accumulating far more campaign cash than any human could ever use in this race.

Davis stumbled badly when directly confronted about his campaign financing abuses. While answering, he looked as shamefacedly guilty as the kid who stole the last chocolate chip cookie.

For his part, Davis tried hard to impugn his opponent’s business record and label Simon as “out-of-touch” for his National Rifle Association endorsement and belief that an unborn child is a human being. Davis claimed Simon wanted to move the state “backward and to the right.” (Oh, if only that were possible!) But the insinuations that his Republican opponent is some sort of monster carried no sting, due both to Simon’s boyish optimism and to their lifeless, morose delivery by Davis, who makes the Grim Reaper look like Jerry Lewis.

Of course, since few voters watched the debate, all this is of little importance. The press made the story of the debate Simon’s ill-advised post-debate statement that a photo existed showing Davis receiving a campaign check in the lieutenant governor’s office. Receiving political donations on state property is illegal. The California Organization of Police & Sheriffs (COPS) had advised Simon’s campaign that they believed the governor had received a campaign contribution from their organization in a state office. Naturally, Gary South, Davis’s chief thug and bottle washer, was shocked, shocked that anyone would believe the governor capable of such a thing.

It appears the photo was taken at a private residence, essentially clearing the governor of this specific charge, embarrassing COPS, and affording the press a new excuse to lambaste Simon. Amazingly, press reporting on the matter centers on whether the “damage” to Simon’s campaign is fatal — which the media has pronounced “dead” at least twice already, the surest sign it still lives — not the more obvious story of Davis’s shady fundraising tactics.

My guess is this is just a 48-hour dust-up soon to be forgotten, even by the press. One large gust from a big news story will blow this one off the front pages. Simon benefits from the fact that even at this late date, most voters aren’t paying attention: Witness the pitiful audience for the debate. The real battle — and ultimate fight for Californians’ hearts and minds — is just getting started. As is usually the case, the victor and vanquished in this race will be determined in the last three weeks of the campaign.

I think what Simon needs to do now is turn this Photo incident to his advantage. Here's what I would do.

Call a press conference to say he is going to apologize to Governor Davis and get all the newsies to line up for live evening coverage.

When the time comes he should say:

"I apologize for the mistake that was made with regard to the photo. I am not familiar with the governors office, and given the governors reputation, I had no reason to question the photo or the testimony of those that gave it to me. It was wrong for me to have made this accusation in this instance and wrong for those who gave me the photo to try and use me in this way. It is right to apologize when you have made a mistake and take responsibility for it. I apologize to the Governor for this one and take full responsibility.

"I would now like to know if the Governor will apologize to me for all of the slanderous remarks he has made towards me, my family, and my family's business. He has lied in his attack ads, and continued to do so even after the courts made it known we had done no wrong, and were, in fact, the injured party.

"I would like to know if the Governor will apologize to the state of California for his mishandling of the energy crisis and taking the state from a 10 billion dollar budget surplus to a 30 billion dollar deficit.

"I would like to know if the Governor will apologize to the people of the San Francisco Bay Area for allowing Dioxin to be dumped in their bay in exchange for campaign contributions."

"I would like to know if the Governor will apologize to all of the special interest groups he extorted money from in exchange for legislation.

"I would like to know if the Governor is willing to admit that he has ever done anything wrong and take responsiblity for it.

"If voters take anything away from this incident, they should at least recognize which of their two choices for governor is willing to admit mistakes and take responsibility for them. Which of us they can trust. Which of us will act responsibly as governor."

If he does this, I think he can turn this whole thing around. Voters are willing to forgive politicians who admit they're human (Bill Clinton proved that). People want honest politicians and are willing to forgive much if they think they have one. I think Simon can use this to prove that he is one and Davis is not. This could be a golden opportunity... if Simon plays it right.

Congressman Billybob:

Unless someone turns states' evidence and squeals, the kickfront pattern is legal on its face. Nathanson did turn states' evidence. That's why Davis has fought for two years to keep the courts from releasing that document. Now that the US Supreme Court declined to act on that case on Monday of this week, the Nathanson letter will probably hit the papers before the Simon-Davis election.
It might have a similar impact as the Chang Memorandum did on Senator Robert ("the Public Official") Torricelli. Governor Gray ("high public official") Davis should then be referred to that way, because that's the code phrase used for Davis in the Nathanson letter.

From the CFAC website

Report: Sealed Letters from Convicted Bribe-Taker Mention Governor Gray Davis (2/11/00)
The Sacramento Bee has reported that letters from attorneys seeking a shortened prison sentence for Mark L. Nathanson, a former California Coastal Commissioner convicted for extorting bribes, name Gray Davis as one had who consulted with Nathanson on leads to potential campaign contributions. The letters were kept under federal court seal since 1994 and came to light only by accident, the Bee says.
The accident, according to the February 6 story by staff writers Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton, was the revelation in a recently filed court document that Nathanson had after all succeeded in having his sentence reduced by one year.
Nathanson was released from prison in January 1997 under several conditions, and last September his probation officer petitioned the court to have him explain why he should not be put back behind bars for failing to live up to one of the conditions -- paying back money extorted from one of his victims.
Attracting the Bee's attention in that petition was the first on-the-record disclosure that Nathanson had been released a year early. The reduction, the Bee learned, was upon motion by the government in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, with no reason stated on the record -- either in the motion itself or in the order of Judge Lawrence K. Karlton -- and with no hearing. The government now says it supported the reduction in exchange for Nathanson's cooperation in an unidentified civil case in Los Angeles, and also out of humanitarian concern for his affliction with a potentially deadly skin cancer.
But this disclosure only emerged after the Bee took legal action to demand access to three sequentially numbered documents which it had discovered missing from the Nathanson case file. These turned out to be two pieces of correspondence sent to federal prosecutors by Nathanson's lawyers at two junctures -- one just before he was sentenced to 57 months in prison and the second about a year later. Both sought the government's support for a sentence reduction, and both, when approved for release to the Bee December 7 in edited form, had names deleted at several points.
The first attorney's letter showed Nathanson alleging that (name deleted) had occasionally met with him at (name deleted) restaurant in Beverly Hills. This politician was interested in campaign contributions from people Nathanson had helped -- as Coastal Commissioner or otherwise. Nathanson and the politician, the letter said, "would make and go over lists of people that Nathanson had assisted with government approvals -- both at the Coastal Commission and elsewhere -- saying that he, (name deleted), 'needed to call' those individuals for campaign contributions.
"As Nathanson understood it," his attorney's letter continued, "in calling these people, (name deleted) was going to suggest a link between he (sic) and and the approvals Nathanson had helped to secure in order to solicit campaign contributions from the individuals on the lists."
The letter sent to prosecutors a year later -- August 1994 -- by another Nathanson attorney offered more allegations, according to the Bee, about linkage between the convicted extortionist and (name deleted).
Both letters were soon attached to a motion by Nathanson's counsel, filed with the court and formally seeking a sentence reduction. None of this paperwork was put in the court file, but instead consigned to the clerk's safe, under a sealing order issued by Judge Karlton but not signed.
When the Bee's court challenge persuaded Karlton that the letters were matters of public record, he released them with the name redactions, he explained, to preserve reputations from unfair harm.
He acknowledged that the exact identity of the politician mentioned by Nathanson was at least potentially newsworthy, "if not so much for the content as for the demonstration of how corrupted our criminal system has become by virtue of the system of bribing people to rat on others. The problem is that, and that is an important public issue, although I have no doubt that is not how the Bee would play the material which is sealed. And that's the problem."
The Bee story claims that "numerous sources who have seen unedited versions of the letters say that Nathanson leveled accusations...against Gray Davis, the Democratic career politician who then was state controller and now is governor of California."
The Bee quotes Davis press spokesman Michael Bustamante as declining "to dignify false and reckless 7-year-old accusations made by a convicted felon hoping to convince federal authorities to reduce his prison sentence." The story also quotes "federal sources close to the investigation" as calling Nathanson's allegations, even if true, too vague to support criminal prosecution.
But the Bee story notes one clear anomaly aside from the secrecy surrounding the sentence reduction and the letters seeking it. In the federal system, sentence reduction, even on motion of the prosecution, is not authorized for reasons of humanitarian concern or even assistance to the government in civil cases.
Under Rule 35 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the court may, "on motion of the Government made within one year after the imposition of the sentence, ... reduce a sentence to reflect a defendant's subsequent, substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense..."
COMMENT: Judge Karlton is right, so far as he goes. The real scandal is not that Gray Davis was served up to federal prosecutors as favor bait by a confessedly corrupt politician, and the real eye-opener is not that Davis is comprehensive in hoovering up campaign funds. The worst corruption -- and that's the judge's word -- is that prosecutors build so many cases on no proof better than a "rat's" word, bought with reduced sentence recommendations or other favors. But this case may illustrate even more than the judge cares to comment on, and that's the risk that when a rat starts to name big names, politically conscious prosecutors and judges may collude to grant favors to shut him up -- and then may have to cover their own tracks in having done so.

This Nathanson Letter might well be the antidote to the campaign staff screw-up over the COPS photo and then some. So when do we get to see it?

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