Recall Vote Set for Oct. 7

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante on Thursday set Oct. 7 as the date of California’s first gubernatorial recall election, giving candidates barely two weeks to decide whether to join the frenetic race to replace incumbent Gov. Gray Davis.

The tight timetable touched off an immediate scramble for voter loyalty by the Democratic governor and his potential opponents. Davis formed a new campaign committee to fight the recall; Republicans vowed to use the historic election as a vehicle to end years of mounting losses at California’s polls.

“We’re not going to blow it,” said GOP strategist Dave Gilliard, director of the Rescue California committee that plans to spend $15 million urging voters to dump Davis. “I’ve seen our party outsmarted before.”

The governor hopes to define his campaign as a drive to stop Republicans from forcing an unpopular conservative agenda on the state. But his immediate challenge is to keep fellow Democrats from putting their names on the ballot.

So far, the state’s top Democrats in elected office have pledged to stay out of the race in a display of party unity that Davis sees as crucial to his political survival. But under the schedule set Thursday, candidates have 16 days to decide whether to run. So until that deadline, the unpopular governor could face a struggle in keeping fellow party members behind him.

A top Democratic strategist called the dynamic “a total game of chicken,” saying the sentiment among labor leaders and other key Democratic players was “well beyond nervousness.”

“There’s no question that there’s real fear of us losing the governor’s office,” the strategist said.

The subtle positioning by potential Democratic candidates -- closing the door, but not all the way -- could be seen in a statement Thursday by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Recent polls have shown her as the most popular California Democrat.

“Nothing that I know right now interests me in running,” she said in Washington. “I think the recall is a terrible mistake for California.”

Bustamante, the Democrat who runs just behind Feinstein in recall polls, was more definitive. After announcing the election date, he said there was no chance he would be a candidate on the recall ballot.

The scope of the election had been in doubt since Tuesday, when Bustamante suggested that he might not include the election of a Davis successor on the ballot. That approach would have at least delayed, and perhaps denied, candidates’ opportunity to run to replace Davis.

But in his proclamation calling the special Oct. 7 election, Bustamante said the ballot would indeed have two parts: the recall proposal, followed by a list of candidates to succeed Davis in case a majority votes to bounce him from office.

Also up for a vote will be an initiative that would stop the state from collecting and using most kinds of racial and ethnic data. The initiative, backed by University of California Regent Ward Connerly, qualified earlier this year to be on the next statewide ballot.

As the potential candidates stepped up their campaign discussions, lawyers for the Davis organization pressed forward with their legal challenge to the recall. After failing to get the California Supreme Court and two lower courts to block Secretary of State Kevin Shelley from certifying the petition for an election, they urged the high court Thursday to stop preparations for the vote.

There was no immediate response from the Supreme Court.

Davis’ lawyers say recall sponsors illegally employed out-of-state petition circulators to gather signatures. Those signatures, they say, should be deemed invalid.

Legal experts predicted that additional court challenges would be mounted as partisans on all sides examine recall laws that have never before been used in a statewide California vote. Everything from campaign spending limits to ballot procedures could be the subject of lawsuits.

But in the absence of court intervention, the concrete fact of an election date put California’s political establishment definitively on track for an intense 74-day campaign.

“Anybody who goes in thinking ‘traditional campaign’ in this circumstance is probably going to get a big surprise,” said Republican ad maker Don Sipple, a member of the team of former aides to Gov. Pete Wilson that is now poised to reassemble for Arnold Schwarzenegger should the actor run.

“It’s going to be very fluid. Unpredictable things will happen,” Sipple said. “It’s going to take a very nimble, adaptive, creative team to pull this off.”

It is also likely to take considerable amounts of money. As the target of the recall, Davis is allowed to raise and spend an unlimited amount in his defense.

The governor plans to raise $15 million to $20 million for the campaign, said Steve Smith, director of the anti-recall effort. That’s a fraction of the $78 million that Davis spent over the four years leading up to his reelection less than a year ago, but enough for several weeks of television ads.

Candidates to succeed Davis also are likely to spend millions. Several of the possible Republican contenders have large personal fortunes they could tap for their campaigns.

Beyond that, the state Democratic and Republican parties plan to pour money into efforts to draw voters to the polls for a contest in which turnout will be crucial. Independent groups including labor unions, Indian tribes and others could also spend money on the campaign.

Schwarzenegger was in Mexico City on Thursday to promote his new movie, “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” Asked by reporters about his political ambitions, he declined to comment.

In California, his spokesman Sean Walsh said Schwarzenegger “honestly has not made up his mind” whether to run.

Before leaving for Mexico, the actor met Wednesday with former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who is also thinking about putting his name on the ballot.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is my first choice, would do a tremendous job,” Riordan told KNBC-TV Channel 4 in Los Angeles. “If, for some reason, Arnold decides not to do it, I will take a hard look.”

Republican investment banker Bill Simon Jr., the party nominee who lost to Davis in November, is weighing a second attempt to unseat the governor.

“He’s very busy today doing stuff in terms of a potential candidacy,” Simon advisor Sal Russo said.

Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, who lost his bid for state controller in November, said he expects to declare his candidacy for governor. McClintock, who worked the phones raising money Thursday, said he would not heed the call of Republican leaders to step aside for the sake of uniting the party behind one candidate. “The next governor of California needs to be elected by the people of California and not appointed in some back room,” he said.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate for governor in the last election, is also planning to run.

The only declared Republican candidate, Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista, has been a major target for Davis since the congressman started bankrolling the recall petition effort in the spring.

Issa strategist Ken Khachigian warned that the candidate, whose arrest record as a young man has been publicized aggressively by Davis operatives, would soon lash back.

“If they think we’re going to be patsies like all their other opponents, they’re crazy,” Khachigian said. “The terms they have set make Gray Davis’ life history fair game for this campaign. Every element.”

A Davis campaign memo, dated Tuesday, said Issa had provided “a good foil” for the governor. But the memo, by Davis pollsters Paul Maslin and Ben Tulchin, also questioned the value of focusing too heavily on attacking the congressman.

“While voters have real concerns about a conservative multimillionaire with a sketchy background who is funding the recall for his personal ambition to be governor, it is important to note that this factor is not as persuasive” as other anti-recall messages, it said.

The memo outlined a strategy that Davis has made obvious in recent public appearances: Democrats must denounce the special election’s cost to taxpayers, cast it in partisan terms, argue that it will not solve California’s problems and warn of high risks for the state.

Davis pursued that approach Thursday at the Los Angeles sheriff’s headquarters in Monterey Park and in a KTLA-TV Channel 5 interview.

In the interview he said Californians risk replacing him with a governor who wins as little as 20% of the vote. There would be no runoff, so if Davis were recalled, the candidate with the most votes would win.

“Who knows who we’d be stuck with,” he said.

The name of the campaign committee formed by Davis on Thursday captured his argument that the election is a waste of taxpayer money: Californians Against the Costly Recall. The secretary of state estimates that the special election will cost the state $30 million to $35 million.

Garry South, who led Davis’ two successful campaigns for governor, will serve as an unpaid advisor. Two of South’s longtime lieutenants will play key roles -- Smith as director and Larry Grisolano as campaign manager.

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Times staff writers Matea Gold, Jean Guccione, Allison Hoffman, Chris Kraul, Dan Morain, Tim Reiterman and Nancy Vogel contributed to this report.