Confident Davis Looks Ahead to Lungren

So what if California’s primary election isn’t until Tuesday. For Democratic front-runner Gray Davis, the general election began this week.

Take Thursday, when he exulted in his front-runner status before a convention of firefighters, who have stuck with him through the long and often frustrating political season.

“I’m not going to wait three weeks,” Davis said at a morning rally in Universal City, where he took aim at putative Republican nominee Dan Lungren. “I’m not going to wait three months. I’m going to start immediately. Dan is a decent fellow, but he’s out of touch with the mainstream.”

Davis seemed caught between declaring victory and exerting his legendary caution. He offered that it was “too soon to celebrate”--even as he did. He said that he would commence firing on Lungren at 8:01 p.m. election night as the polls closed--and he proceeded to dump on him right there and then.

Feeding Davis’ confidence--and forcing his major Democratic opponents to hinge their hopes on a last-minute groundswell in their direction--was a new California poll showing Davis with nearly double the support of the other Democrats. According to the survey, conducted by the Field organization, Davis commanded 27% of likely voters, to 14% for U.S. Rep. Jane Harman of Torrance and 13% for businessman Al Checchi.

Lungren, who has no major opposition for the Republican nomination, had 31%.

The trailing candidates, coursing through Northern and Central California, tried their best to put a positive spin on things.

“I think you’re going to see this shifting--late, but shifting,” Harman said at a news conference at Sacramento City Hall.

“These polls have been up and down,” Checchi said. “I think a lot of people really haven’t decided.”

Lungren, for his part, kept silent Thursday. His only scheduled event was an evening fund-raiser that was closed to the public.

For Davis, the poll’s indication that his lead of several weeks appeared solid came as welcome relief, and it powered his change of focus to the general election in November.

In Cerritos, he told an afternoon crowd of union supporters that he had spent time in Long Beach Thursday when he met with the editorial board of Lungren’s hometown paper, the Press-Telegram.

“We’re not conceding anything,” he said.

Davis did not explicitly say why he believes that Lungren is “out of touch,” but he has cited Lungren’s anti-abortion views and other positions. The conservative attorney general has defended his views as well within the mainstream of California.

At Whitney High School in Cerritos, Davis praised the magnet school and said he would insist on high performance from schoolchildren. He touted his plans for more magnet schools, optional Saturday classes, contracts requiring parent participation and fluency in multiple languages for high school students.

But much of the tone of his day bordered on giddy.

“You believed in me when I was in third place, you believed in me when I was in second place, and now you believe in me when I’m in first place,” Davis told the firefighters in Universal City. “I don’t know who is finishing second, but I know who’s finishing first. That’s what I’m keeping my eye on.”

Davis also turned aside Harman’s renewed thrust that he lacked the boldness to be governor.

“People who fight in Vietnam can’t be too meek,” said the former U.S. Army captain, who has repeatedly used his Vietnam military service to contrast himself with Lungren. The Republican did not serve in the military for health reasons.

Harman spent her day as she has the past two, insisting that her position on gun control--she wants to ban all assault weapons and Saturday night specials handguns--shows she will stand up to special interests.

“We need bolder leadership,” she said, standing behind a display of semiautomatic weapons seized by Sacramento police. “We need a governor who understands these guns are dangerous.”

In two events in the state capital, Harman said she is the Democrat best positioned to defeat Lungren, a line borrowed from her new television ad. But, responding to questions from guests at a Comstock Club luncheon, Harman also tweaked Checchi by saying that she would support campaign spending limits because “so many people can’t run for office because they can’t afford the admission price.”

That response bothered Carol Howle, a senior administrative assistant for Golden Gate University, who pointed out that Harman also donated millions to her own campaign.

“She didn’t limit her own spending,” Howle said. “If you’re going to make a change, you have to make it within yourself first.”

Checchi, though hardly oblivious to the new poll numbers, spent his second day in the spirited confines of a yellow school bus, traveling from Fresno to Bakersfield to Santa Barbara.

He said that he intended to spend the rest of the campaign shining a light on California’s often-bedraggled education system.

“I hope if we accomplish anything in the last few days, it will be to refocus California on the needs of the children,” Checchi said.

At one point, at Heaton Elementary in Fresno, he listened as a former teacher complained about instructing children with books that did not even mention the 1969 landing on the moon. In response, he recalled President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

“If we could do that, don’t tell me a state like California with all its resources couldn’t get to the national average in education spending,” said Checchi, the only one of the four major candidates who has pledged to raise school spending to the national average.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Dave Lesher, Amy Pyle, Jodi Wilgoren and Dan Morain.