Davis Draws News Media With Jet-Stop Tour

For two days, Ed Davis has chatted about cappuccino in Eureka, attacked liberals and trial lawyers in Redding and held forth in Bakersfield on the need to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

The score card as Davis sees it: eight television crews, a dozen radio reporters and plenty of free coverage for his underfinanced campaign for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

Unable to bombard Republican voters with a modern media blitz and unwilling to sling mud at his rivals for the nomination, Davis has revived an old political gimmick to attract attention in the final days before Tuesday’s primary: the whistle-stop tour.

Private jets replace the train in the 1986 version, and there is no more stump speech. At most stops, Davis just calls a press conference; offers one of his colorful slogans like, “I’m the candidate of merit, not money,” and asks for questions.

Davis, a state senator from Valencia who is more moderate than some of his rivals, tried to capitalize on his tough image as the retired Los Angeles police chief in a brief speech at the Redding West Rotary Club by boasting of success in fighting terrorists.

Davis said the intelligence unit he created in the Los Angeles Police Department “thwarted lots of murderers and terrorists” by placing police officers inside groups like the Black Panthers.

“We infiltrated a whole bunch of organizations,” Davis said.

The City of Los Angeles recently paid damages to groups that charged they were spied on by the Police Department’s controversial Public Disorder Intelligence Division beginning in Davis’ tenure. The Police Commission disbanded the unit and placed restrictions on future intelligence gathering on law-abiding groups.

Davis, interviewed later, blamed the Public Disorder Intelligence Division controversy on harassment by civil libertarians, liberals and the news media and said the country has suffered from a decline in domestic intelligence gathering.

Davis, who favors Proposition 51 on Tuesday’s ballot, which would reform liability laws, also told the Rotary Club that trial lawyers are to blame for blocking attempts to reform the laws.

“I have some (lawyers) in my family, but not all your kids can turn out right,” he joked.

In Fresno, where his campaign began airing television commercials this week noting his opposition to the reconfirmation to Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, Davis said he plans no surprise attacks on the other candidates in the final days before the election.

“I’m not going to go bashing somebody,” Davis said. “I haven’t said anything bad publicly, for publication, about my opponents.”

However, asked by local reporters to characterize the statewide race, he referred to rival Rep. Ed Zschau of Los Altos as a “liberal,” a label other GOP contenders have tried to pin on Zschau.

Later Wednesday in Bakersfield, Davis said, in response to a local reporter’s question, that he agrees with Zschau on many social issues but differs with him on foreign affairs and defense.

“I would probably be much more inclined to have a strong military capability,” Davis said.

On Nicaragua, Davis said the U.S. should take all steps short of sending troops in order to “disestablish” the Sandinista government.

“We never got rid of the cancer in Cuba, and we know now we should have acted more forcefully,” Davis said.