Ad Will Blame Davis for Crisis

Acting under cover of a taxpayer group, Republicans are preparing a statewide ad blitz blaming Gov. Gray Davis for California’s energy crunch, a move certain to escalate partisan tensions.

The commercial is credited to an organization called the American Taxpayers Alliance, but it was placed by a GOP consulting firm and apparently produced by Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist renowned for his attack advertising.

The campaign-style TV ad is set to air Monday, more than 16 months before Davis faces reelection. The spot does not promote a rival candidate. Rather, it assails Davis and his appointees on the Public Utilities Commission for failing to sign “long-term, cost-saving contracts” before wholesale prices soared.

“That’s why newspapers say Davis ignored all the warning signals and turned the problem into a crisis,” the advertisement states.

The source of the ad and its funding have been shielded under the murky laws that govern so-called independent expenditure campaigns. The American Taxpayers Alliance paid roughly $350,000 for the first wave of ads.

Castellanos has close ties to the White House. Last year he created negative spots that Republicans ran against Vice President Al Gore, including a controversial one that flashed the word “RATS” on screen for a split second.

But Republican officials from the Bush administration on down denied any connection to the anti-Davis spots, scheduled to air in Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Castellanos declined to comment.

“Unlike Gov. Davis, the RNC is not using slick political consultants to spin our way out of this problem,” Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Friday.

Representatives of several major out-of-state generators, who have been warring with Davis for months, also denied any connection to the ads. “We’re not participating in that,” said Richard Wheatley, spokesman for power supplier Reliant Energy Inc. of Houston.

“We’re completely out of the loop on these ads,” said Jim Owen, spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, an industry umbrella group in Washington.

However, the generators have done extensive public opinion research in California over the past several months. Their surveys have found that Californians give Davis poor marks for his handling of the crisis but generally do not blame him for causing the problem.

The ad shipped this week to TV stations around California appear designed to convince people that Davis, indeed, is at fault. “He’s pointing fingers and blaming others,” the commercial states. “. . . But who runs the PUC? The people Gray Davis appointed.”

Last year the state’s major utilities repeatedly asked for permission to enter long-term contracts that could have helped control wholesale prices. Regulators turned them away before finally allowing them to negotiate longer-term contracts at rates that ended up higher.

However, while Loretta Lynch--who is named in the ad--was head of the PUC at the time, Davis had not yet appointed a majority of the commission.

The ad campaign comes as the two major parties are moving closer in Washington toward a consensus on wholesale price relief for California and other Western states, which face high summer electricity bills and fears of spot shortages.

Even so, Republicans on Capitol Hill have fretted that Democrats--led by Davis and their new Senate majority--are winning the public relations and political battles.

Last month, senior aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and others voiced their concerns to lobbyists from conservative groups and major power firms.

“We basically said, ‘Are you planning on doing anything to promote your side?’ ” said one senior House aide involved in the talks.

While disavowing any connection, House Republicans said Friday they welcomed news of the impending ad campaign. “It’s been a tough communications battle,” said Brian Kennedy, press secretary for Republican Rep. George P. Radanovich of Mariposa. “Largely because Democrats have been going out saying, ‘Give us price caps.’ And to this point we’ve just said ‘No.’ ”

Democrats, predictably, were outraged. Ignoring White House denials, Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Atherton) rounded up more than two dozen colleagues who dispatched an angry letter to Vice President Dick Cheney.

“While the administration repeatedly has rejected enforcing the law and allowing price relief for Californians, it now seems to be coming together with the [energy] industry . . . to run a campaign telling Californians that ‘gouging is good,’ ” Eshoo wrote. “California needs real P.R. . . . price relief.”

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Times staff writers Nancy Rivera Brooks, Robin Fields and Greg Miller contributed to this story.