Bush Comes Calling to an Edgy California

When President Bush arrives in California today for the first time since taking office, he will engage Gov. Gray Davis in a private discussion that could become the domestic equivalent of a peace summit.

Davis plans to press his case for caps on wholesale electricity prices, something Bush insists would worsen the state’s power crisis. Bush wants to show Californians that he cares about their plight, and he plans to highlight his administration’s efforts to promote conservation.

As tends to be the case with summits, solutions are likely to be elusive, progress incremental.

Bush’s California tour begins Tuesday morning at Camp Pendleton, where he will tout his efforts to reduce electricity use at military bases. After that, he speaks to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. On Wednesday, he visits Sequoia National Park.

The Bush-Davis meeting, to be held sometime Tuesday in Los Angeles, will certainly address the state’s electricity turmoil, and it comes amid an escalating war between Democrats and Republicans over national energy policy.

But there’s more at stake than price caps. Davis and his administration want other things from Washington, from increased federal aid to help fight an insect threatening the wine industry to an exemption from a rule that could increase gasoline prices in California.

On a grander scale, the meeting could determine what kind of relationship the Republican president and Democratic governor will have from this point on, and what kind of support Davis can expect from the White House on other important state matters.

Also in play are the images of both men.

“Politically,” said Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, “both the president and the governor have been wounded. Their goal is to get the crisis off their back. . . . Substantively, we have a real crisis, and it requires the involvement of the state and federal government.”

Davis was elected governor in a 1998 landslide. But he heads into his 2002 reelection campaign with plummeting poll numbers. A Field Poll released last week showed only 42% of registered voters in California approve of the job he’s doing as governor, while 49% disapprove--a sharp drop from January, when 60% supported Davis’ performance.

Bush is faring badly in California too. A private poll taken earlier this month on behalf of Public Strategies, a consulting firm that represents independent power generators, showed that 71% of the state’s likely voters thought the president should be doing more to solve the energy crisis; only 23% thought he was doing enough.

Sragow assumes that advisors to Davis and Bush are debating among themselves over whether it serves their interests best to emerge from the talks appearing to be allies, or adversaries. “The public dislikes conflict and wants the problem of rising prices and threatened blackouts solved,” he said.

However, as Bush and Davis were preparing for the meeting, their aides could not even agree on who requested it first.

Karen Hughes, counselor to the president, said Bush would listen to Davis’ argument in support of price controls. However, she said the president still felt strongly that price caps would discourage investment in new power plants.

Hughes disputed suggestions that the administration has neglected the state, which Bush lost to Democrat Al Gore by more than 1 million votes.

“He came up short in the vote on election day in California, but he will not let that deter him from doing what is right for California,” she said. “He is the president of all of the people of the United States.”

Bush was thought by some political analysts to be reluctant to visit California until he had an energy proposal he could point to as a response to the state’s problems. But White House officials say the president’s travel agenda during his first four months in office has been designed around legislative geography: He spent most of his time on the road visiting states where senators might be persuaded to support his tax cut.

Dan Bartlett, one of Bush’s communications advisors, said the White House always has regarded California as an important destination for Bush, even if he will have visited 29 other states before he arrives here. The state “has difficult times ahead of it [and] it’s important the president and federal government help them through these difficult times,” Bartlett said.

Still, meetings between presidents and governors, particularly ones of opposing parties, invariably become studies in one-upmanship. That’s particularly true when the governor is seen as a future presidential candidate.

When President Clinton came to California, the White House rarely if ever deigned to inform Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. On rare occasions when they would meet--generally at out-of-the-way airports--White House officials took pains to show who was in charge, by changing meeting locations at the last minute, for example, or making sure that the president’s chair was taller than the governor’s.

Wilson’s relationship with Clinton was more strained than Davis’ is with Bush. The combative Wilson repeatedly sued the federal government on issues ranging from voter registration requirements to demands for reimbursements for costs associated with illegal immigration.

“It is smart of the Bush White House to hold a meeting with Gov. Davis,” said Sean Walsh, a former Wilson spokesman. “One need only look at Davis’ background. If the president didn’t come, Davis likely would show up on the street with a milk carton with George Bush’s face plastered on the side.”

So far, Davis has not sued over the energy crisis, although Democratic leaders of the Legislature have gone to court to compel federal regulators to make sure interstate electricity rates are “just and reasonable.”

But the governor has been amping up his rhetoric. He has retained consultants Chris Lehane and Mark D. Fabiani, veteran operatives from the Clinton administration, under a contract that will pay them $30,000 a month. Both are known for their attack-oriented tactics.

On Thursday, Davis called Bush “practical” and “well-intentioned.” At the same time, he threatened to sue the administration if his meeting with the president fails to produce desired results.

“Give us relief. Find a way to give us relief,” Davis implored. And if the president continues to refuse to impose price caps? “We’re going to court then. The law says we’re entitled to relief, and it hasn’t been coming. We have a whole bunch of contingency plans.”

Even if the meeting produces no tangible results, it will be an opportunity to “tone down the rhetoric,” said Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks).

“You can’t engage in a war with the president,” the speaker added, because there are too many issues on which the state needs federal aid.

But Bill Whalen, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a former Wilson aide, demurred. “You can’t tell me that with the Clinton-Gore spin machine now running [Davis’] communications that we’re going to see a kinder, gentler governor,” he said. “The big question for the White House is: Will they tailor their agenda to conform to California, or conclude that California doesn’t fit into the national mainstream as they see it?”

Bush is visiting a state that has become ground zero in a Democratic-Republican battle for public opinion over energy.

With Democrats hoping to use the energy issue to gain control of the House in the 2002 elections, House Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri will be in Oakland on Tuesday and Torrance on Wednesday to turn up the heat on Republicans. On Friday, Democrats began running radio ads in five GOP lawmakers’ districts in five states, assailing them and the administration for not doing more to bring down energy prices.

Before the trip was announced, GOP lawmakers from California appealed to Bush to visit the state and counter Democratic criticism of the administration.

The exchanges reached a new level of intensity when California’s Democratic attorney general, Bill Lockyer, suggested in an interview published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that Ken Lay, chairman of the Texas-based energy company Enron Corp. and a close friend of Bush, should be locked in a prison cell with a tattooed inmate named “Spike.”

One political analyst said that perhaps it was time for Sacramento and Washington to exchange ambassadors.

Some observers see little downside to Davis’ attacks--and the possibility of political gains for a governor whose popularity has declined significantly.

“Which do you think Gray Davis cares more about--his dealings with Washington or his reelection chances?” Whalen asked.

Because of its Democratic tilt, California was never going to be on the administration’s “A list” for federal goodies, said one Washington lobbyist who works on California issues.

Others, however, insist that the White House will not take actions designed only to punish California, no matter how estranged Bush and Davis become.

“Bush is going to do what’s right for California regardless of the governor’s remarks,” asserted Rep. George P. Radanovich (R-Mariposa).

“Ultimately, the safety net for the state is the Republican delegation in Congress,” said Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. “They have the vested interest in ensuring that California gets its fair share.”

Even if Bush and Davis emerge from their summit shaking hands, the public shouldn’t assume they have become partners in peace.

In fact, Davis may have more to gain by aligning himself with another Washington figure whose influence expanded dramatically last week when Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont quit the Republican Party, tipping control of the Senate to the Democrats.

“Davis does have a new friend in Washington,” Whalen said, “but it’s Tom Daschle,” the South Dakota Democrat who is about to become Senate majority leader.

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Simon reported from Washington and Morain from Sacramento. Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this story.