135 Candidates Qualify for Oct. 7 Recall Ballot

The suspense ended on one front of the California recall on Wednesday as state election officials certified 135 names for the Oct. 7 ballot.

The candidates hoping to replace Gov. Gray Davis in the special election were culled from 247 applications.

A low threshold for candidacy produced a ballot like no other, including well-known political veterans, action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, a former child star, an adult film actress and a slew of others who unabashedly say they are doing it for the fleeting fame.

The total number of candidates is close to predictions made by county election registrars. Some of those officials have warned that the lengthy ballot may create counting delays on election night, particularly in counties that have not yet switched to electronic voting systems. That could delay election results for several days, especially if the race is close.

“We still have a lot of work to do; I’ll be working tonight after my kids go to bed to proof the list,” said Gail Pellerin, Santa Cruz County’s election manager.

On Wednesday, with 55 days to go until the special election, a number of candidates campaigned throughout the state and fine-tuned their staffs and strategies.

Some prominent candidates, such as Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Peter Ueberroth, made no campaign stops Wednesday, while state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) continued to hit talk-radio programs touting a campaign that he has targeted toward his core conservative supporters.

In the first recall of a California governor, voters will be asked to vote up or down on whether Davis should keep his job. Regardless of how they vote on that issue, they will be able to choose a backup gubernatorial candidate from among the scores of names appearing on the second half of the ballot.

If Davis gets less than 50% of voter support on the first question, whoever gets the most votes on the second question would serve out the three years left in Davis’ term, leading a state with 36 million residents and the world’s fifth-largest economy.

Here’s a summary of campaign activities Wednesday:

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Despite having no campaign appearances, Schwarzenegger made news with the announcement that he had hired billionaire investor Warren Buffett as his campaign’s senior financial and economic advisor. Schwarzenegger came to the U.S. from Austria more than 30 years ago, earning a fortune, as well as fame, as a bodybuilder and actor. The Republican is considered the leading candidate.

The decision to bring Buffett, a registered Democrat who lives in Nebraska, onto the campaign staff, and his willingness to help, may blunt criticism of Schwarzenegger by some for surrounding himself with former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and many of his aides. Wilson has been the focus of much anger from California Latino voters for his support of Proposition 187, a measure to deny illegal immigrants access to public services that passed by a wide margin in 1994 only to be overturned in the courts. But Buffett’s close ties to Democrats could also hurt Schwarzenegger’s efforts to gain conservative support.

Buffett, 67, is a legend in the investment world for long-term success, and is listed by Forbes magazine as the second-richest man in the United States behind Bill Gates of Microsoft.

Gov. Gray Davis

Davis stuck close to his core base of support, appearing in San Francisco alongside Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. He pledged to sign a package of bills that he said would bolster the reproductive rights of women.

Although billed as regular gubernatorial business, the event had the trappings of a campaign rally. To cheers and a standing ovation by women sporting “San Francisco Democratic Party / On Your Side” T-shirts, Davis outlined his history of support for pro-choice legislation, and Michelman and others vowed to fight the recall.

Michelman warned that the effort to unseat Davis, who she described as the most pro-choice governor in the nation, was orchestrated by the same forces working to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision that gave women the right to have an abortion.

In keeping with a strategy to keep Davis -- known in the past for aggressive campaigning -- above the recall fray, the governor did his best to portray the event as nothing more than the nuts and bolts of governing. He named two Bay Area women to Superior Court benches and appointed four others to the Commission on the Status of Women. And he pledged his support for three state Senate bills and two Assembly bills related to reproductive rights.

When asked about the obvious campaign flavor, Davis repeated a mantra of the past few days: “As I’ve said, there are lots of people who want to be governor, but I am the governor and I’m going to continue to do the work of this state.”

Among Davis’ priorities for the legislative session that begins Monday are passage of a consumer privacy bill, workers’ compensation reform and long-term structural reform to avert a future budget crisis.

Bill Simon Jr.

Simon, the Republican who lost to Davis in the 2000 gubernatorial race, concentrated on the troubles of small businesses on a campaign stop at a flower shop in downtown San Francisco.

“I don’t ever think I’ve seen the economy this bad,” he told owner Harold Hoogasian as a swarm of television news cameramen elbowed for position. No customers were in sight, although a few workers arranging flowers looked on curiously.

“What would you like us to do in Sacramento?” Simon asked Hoogasian.

“Less regulation,” the florist replied, saying that state rules that calculate overtime payments by the day rather than the week drive up his expenses.

Simon turned to the cameras to respond: “The fact is this daily overtime is strangling small businesses. It’s a noble-sounding objective, but at the end of the day it eliminates flex time.”

If elected to replace Davis, Simon, a multimillionaire businessman who runs an investment firm, said he would reform overtime rules and workers’ compensation to make life easier on California businesses. Since the campaign officially began over the weekend, Simon has kept up a frenetic schedule. He started Wednesday before dawn, making a string of appearances on San Francisco TV news shows. He visited six cities in three days is scheduled to be in Palm Springs today.

Peter Camejo,

Arianna Huffington

One day after announcing an unorthodox alliance, Green Party candidate Camejo sat by the side of smiling nonpartisan candidate Huffington to clarify their union. The two candidates have vowed to campaign cooperatively in order to get what they describe as a “progressive” message out. But how the relationship will play out in the final weeks of the campaign remained unclear.

Camejo has said he would be willing to throw his support behind Huffington if she appears to take a strong lead. And Wednesday, at the offices of the nonprofit activist organization Global Exchange, Huffington returned the favor -- in theory.

“Let’s say we woke up and Peter Camejo had caught fire, and suddenly it looked like he could win this thing -- absolutely I would step down,” she said before heading into a meeting with Camejo.

But how -- or whether -- either candidate would step aside remains to be seen. While Camejo is promoting inter-progressive unity, there are signs that his idea is already causing some Green Party fractiousness. The party, which will decide whether to endorse Camejo’s run for governor today, has not yet agreed to encourage its voters to switch camps in the event Huffington takes a sharp lead, Camejo conceded.

Times staff writers Allison Hoffman and Joel Rubin contributed to this report.