Anti-Affirmative Action Leader Quits : Ballot initiative: Gelman’s resignation comes after campaign ran short of cash. UC regent Connerly has been asked to take over as chairman.

The campaign manager of the proposed California initiative to end affirmative action has resigned, after the high-profile campaign raised almost $500,000 but ran short of cash needed to place it on next November’s ballot.

Campaign officials also are expected to talk today with Ward Connerly, Gov. Pete Wilson’s friend and appointee to the University of California Board of Regents, in a renewed push to persuade him to become chairman of the initiative to abolish affirmative action in government hiring and contracting.

Connerly, a Sacramento businessman, became one of the most visible backers of the “California civil rights initiative” this year when he helped Wilson, then a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, abolish affirmative action policies at the University of California.

“Ward Connerly is eloquent on this issue,” said Larry Arnn, one of the initiative’s main backers and president of the conservative Claremont Institute.

Connerly said Tuesday that he will make a decision over the weekend. “It has been offered. I have resisted until now.”

Early public opinion polls show that although the proposed initiative is popular with voters, most African Americans oppose it. Connerly is African American and, Arnn said, “that is good on this issue.”

Meanwhile, Joe Gelman, the initiative’s widely quoted campaign manager, resigned over the weekend after the campaign ran short of cash. Arnn said Gelman left by “mutual agreement,” but a state Republican leader, who asked to remain unnamed, said Gelman was forced to quit.

“There has been mismanagement. They have squandered time and money,” the Republican operative said. “[The shake-up] is a rescue effort being mounted by Gov. Wilson, the California Republican Party and by the national party.”

Gelman, who had never run a statewide initiative campaign, had been criticized for spending too little money on the petition drive to place the measure on the ballot and too much on direct mail efforts to raise money.

“We’re not going to be having a campaign manager. We need to cut down and turn into a bare-bones operation until we qualify,” Gelman said, explaining his resignation.

Earlier this month, Gelman criticized the California Republican Party and others for promising to give money to the campaign and then not following through.

“We needed people to start coming through and nobody likes to be embarrassed into doing anything,” Gelman said.

The GOP intends to help finance the measure, and is counting on having it on the November ballot as one way of bringing Republican voters to the polls, just as the anti-illegal immigration Proposition 187 did in 1994.

“It’s our No. 1 issue for initiatives. It is a key part of the presidential campaign,” said Victoria Herrington, spokeswoman for the state GOP.

Before the measure can be on the ballot, supporters must gather 690,000 valid signatures of registered voters. To that end, they have hired American Petition Consultants, a firm that specializes in circulating initiative petitions.

Mike Arno, owner of the firm, had pulled his signature-gatherers off the streets this month when the measure’s proponents ran into cash flow problems. His troops are back out now, having been redeployed a week ago.