Gray Davis--Running and Spinning

Lt. Gov. Gray Davis has a message for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Don’t bother. Forget about it. The 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nomination isn’t worth her trouble because she probably can’t beat Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren in the general election.

She’s not what she used to be. She has taken too many blows in too many brawls. She’s walking wounded. She’d just be getting into another bruising battle and she’d get battered again.

Davis has an even blunter message for his other potential rivals in the Democratic primary: Stop fantasizing. It’s impossible. The nomination’s out of their reach.

The spin: Few voters know anything about Leon E. Panetta, President Clinton’s former chief of staff, or state Controller Kathleen Connell. Nobody’s ever heard of Alfred A. Checchi, the Northwest Airlines co-chairman. Panetta and Connell can’t raise enough money under Proposition 208 to become known. Checchi has half a billion dollars of his own, but when was the last time an unknown rich guy bought himself a top office in California? Not in our lifetime.

Davis expands on this message when talking to Democratic contributors: He can beat Lungren because he matches up well, like one basketball player against another. He’s a “centrist”--favors the new welfare reform, business tax breaks, the death penalty, abortion rights--while Lungren’s “a garden variety conservative.” Davis attracts votes in centrist, rapidly growing “Inland California.” He also has statewide name ID and $4 million in the bank.

And one other thing: You don’t need to like a candidate to support him, as Gov. Pete Wilson has shown.

“I tell Democrats, don’t think with your heart, think with your head,” Davis says. “You may not like the way I smile or part my hair, but I’m the Democrat with the best chance of beating Dan Lungren.”

*

That’s the Davis spin and some of it makes sense. Some of it is dreaming, like when he underrates Panetta.

For the record, Davis goes easy on the Feinstein-Panetta-Connell “can’t win” litany when out in public and mostly just talks up himself. The main job of spinning the negative is assigned to his chief of staff, Garry South.

Davis’ strategy is to discourage party rivals. So far he’s the only Democrat running for governor. If Feinstein decides to get in, she’ll be heavily favored to win the nomination, a reality Davis privately concedes. She already has trounced him once, in a bitter 1992 Senate primary. The betting is that if Feinstein runs, Panetta won’t; if she doesn’t, Panetta will. Then Connell also will be tempted; one woman against two or three men in a primary where most votes are cast by women.

Feinstein probably will decide by June.

Meanwhile, Davis is reminding people that he, unlike Feinstein, consistently has carried “Inland California,” 38 counties that could provide 30% of the vote in 1998. Also, a private statewide poll in September showed Feinstein trailing Lungren by two points, but Davis running nine ahead.

Times polls have found a troublesome trend for Feinstein, 63, who has run three statewide races this decade and was hammered hard in 1994 by Mike Huffington. Last October, the voters’ impression of her was 49% favorable, 38% unfavorable. Before ‘94, her marks always were higher, even into the 60s.

In the October poll, 59% had no opinion of Panetta, and Connell was a mystery to 87%. But 49% also had no view of Davis, so he isn’t exactly a household word either.

*

The fallback for Davis is to run for reelection. But it hasn’t been fun playing stand-in for a Republican governor. Wilson slashed the lieutenant governor’s budget and tried to boot him out of the Capitol. Finally, Wilson backed off after Davis threatened to fire the governor’s chief of staff and finance director the next time he left the state.

Davis, 54, figures it’s up-or-out. Time to get elected governor or get on with another life. He has been in state politics for 23 years--as former Gov. Jerry Brown’s chief of staff, as an assemblyman, a controller and No. 2.

He’s the guy who got the pictures of missing children placed on milk cartons in the mid-’80s. As controller, he hunted down people the state owed money. He now is suing tobacco companies for the state cost of treating sick smokers.

One rap is that he’s always looking for a publicity stunt, such as offering a $50,000 state reward for the capture of Ennis Cosby’s killer. A publicity-seeking politician, however, is hardly unique.

Assessing 1998, he told me: “I have a great luxury. You and everyone else underestimate my [political] assets.”

I don’t know about that. I do know that here’s one Democrat, at least, who knows what he wants. He’s barreling after it, spinning all the way, and can’t be discounted.