GOP All Gung-Ho for Recall? Guess Again

All recall, all the time. At least it’s starting to feel that way.

First: A group calling itself Republicans Against the Recall is entreating fellow GOPsters not to sign recall petitions and to vote “no” if the matter comes to the ballot.

It’s not for any love of Gray Davis, but San Diego Republican Bill Marvin says a recall is actually “a colossal political gamble, which could actually result in a new, strong and popular Democratic governor sitting in the statehouse.”

And the group’s chairman, Scott Barnett, warns that a recall “could destroy whatever shred remains of civilized political discourse in this state.”

With the 2004 presidential election still a ways off, California’s possible recall election has given the Beltway bloviators a new topic.

The White House’s West Coast man, Gerry Parsky, has been said to be cool to the recall notion, and in Newsweek, commentator George Will calculates that although President Bush isn’t expected to win California, he could make it expensive for any Democrat to get.

“That hope would be best served,” writes Will, by keeping Davis in office.

Then: Another group composed, so it says, of former Bill Simon volunteers supports the recall but is entreating the businessman/former gubernatorial candidate NOT to become putty in the hands of political handlers and run again if the recall reaches the ballot.

“If you become a candidate,” the stinging open letter went, “you WILL hurt the efforts of so many who’ve worked so hard for the last year.... By splitting the Republican vote, you will also ultimately hurt yourself, forever damaging your credibility in the party....

“Republicans we have spoken with are mortified at the prospect of your candidacy.... If your campaign is anything like the stumbling, clumsy performance we painfully but nonetheless enthusiastically supported last year, the Democrats could conceivably manage to elect one of their own, or Gray Davis could even survive the recall.”

If Simon had sought out grass-roots opinion, the letter went on, “you would have received a resounding “PLEASE BILL, DON’T RUN!”

A historical footnote courtesy of Robert Stern, who is president of the nonpartisan Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies:

State Sen. Edwin Grant was recalled in 1913 because he opposed prostitution -- he represented San Francisco’s red-light district, and his constituents found that his votes would undermine their illicit but profitable livelihoods.

And the nation’s only governor to be recalled was North Dakota’s Lynn J. Frazier, in 1921, says Stern.

But a few years thereafter, he was elected to the U.S. Senate -- where he served three terms.

A recalled Gray Davis might indeed pack his bags -- but for D.C.?

Finding Similarities in Nixon and Hillary

The millennium really has arrived.

On the forum of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Web site -- www.nixonlibrary.org -- a Florida regular to the site argues that two American politicians who have a lot in common are ... Richard Nixon and Hillary Rodham Clinton. “People like this are often brilliant and have outstanding leadership qualities,” he wrote. “Yet many disagreed and vilified [them].”

The Nixon Foundation’s executive director, John Taylor, cautiously agrees that “both RN and Mrs. Clinton are polarizing figures. Perhaps polarizers can be defined as colorful politicians who stand out from the pack early in their runs.”

The Wicked Witch of Beverly Hills

And your little yellow-dog Democrat too.

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger was a movie villain -- even before he became an American -- another screen meanie had gone political.

Margaret Hamilton, the splendidly Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz,” was elected to the nonpartisan school district board in L.A.’s own version of Oz, Beverly Hills.

Under her married surname, Meserve, she held the post from 1948 to 1951.

Her son, Hamilton Meserve, told The Times she was recruited to run because, inasmuch as people from the movie world were “a major component of the Beverly Hills population,” the powers that be felt that someone from “the business” should serve on the board, and the former kindergarten teacher fit the bill.

When the American Film Institute listed its top movie villains last month, Hamilton’s witch role earned her fourth place (after Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates and Darth Vader).

Schwarzenegger’s evil incarnation of the first Terminator film came in 22nd.

Hamilton won her election by a ratio of more than 3 to 1.

Points Taken

* In case you missed it: Ladies Night at the Pavillion Gun Range on Hammer Lane in Stockton. The event was sponsored by the Young Republican Federation of Sacramento Valley and Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi (R-Lodi) -- “No experience required! Invite your friends!” Don’t know about any X-chromosome discount for gunplay, but fellas, in 1985 the state Supreme Court unanimously declared that sex-based promotions and discounts such as “ladies nights” amount to sex discrimination and are illegal.

* Who’s for whom? Endorsing Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts: California Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly. For Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina: Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson. And for Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Willie Nelson.

* House Majority Leader Tom DeLay wants Huntington Beach Republican Dana Rohrabacher to be reelected to Congress and will be in Surf City on Friday for a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser.

* Niko and Theo Milonopoulos, the honor-student twins who founded a group called Kidz Voice-LA and pressed the city to ban ammo sales after the North Hollywood bank shootout, will be serving as congressional pages. Because of redistricting, their parents have been constituents of L.A. Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman, who jointly named the teens to the page posts.

* Did some political psychic select the name for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1990 film “Total Recall”?

You Can Quote Me

“It’s a game of chicken with the budget, and it should be stopped.”

-- Frances Gracechild of the Resources of Independent Living, complaining to the Associated Press that the state budget is being held up by legislators trying to advance the cause of recalling Gray Davis from office.

Patt Morrison’s column appears Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt .morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Steven Herbert and Jean O. Pasco.