Defeat Closes In on a Cold Cookie as Campaign Leaves Bad Taste

I went to see Gray Davis on Monday at the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, and there were items on produce carts that looked more alive than he did.

It was as if he had gotten an advance peek at today’s L.A. Times poll, which puts him in critical condition, with Arnold Schwarzenegger standing on his chest.

The poll suggests that this thing isn’t even close. It has the recall winning by 56% to 42%, with Schwarzenegger surging to 40%, a commanding lead of eight points over Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

Polls are at least as suspect as pundits, and neither should ever be trusted. But just in case, you might want to get used to the following seven syllables:

Governor Schwarzenegger.

At the market, where Davis made his Dead Man Walking appearance, state Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres estimated that 80% of Democrats will vote against the recall. But that’s a dream.

The Times poll has 27% of Democrats supporting the recall, including 20% of liberal Democrats and 35% of moderate Democrats. Not even steroids can pump up Davis now.

You had to figure the governor was in serious trouble when his next-door neighbor in Sacramento explained why she sent $2,000 to the recall campaign.

Charlotte Goland, 79, essentially told the New York Times that she sent the money not because Davis was a bad governor, but because he was a lousy neighbor.

“He’s a cold cookie,” she said. “Woooooo-eeeee.”

Not once in five years did he say hello while coming or going, says Goland, and he wasn’t warm like the Pete Wilsons and George Deukmejians, who threw parties, led sing-alongs and invited neighbors over.

“And then this guy comes in,” Goland’s daughter Claudia said, referring to Davis.

That’s the Gray Davis story. No friends, as San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown says, and no political body fat, as Democratic consultant Darry Sragow describes it.

But none of that is new. So why the sudden collapse by Davis, after it looked for weeks as though the recall was a tossup?

I’ll tell you why.

When Bustamante did a belly-flop off the high dive, and the frighteningly rigid state Sen. Tom McClintock started having a Tony Perkins thing going on, it came down to a two-person race between Schwarzenegger and Davis.

And Davis can’t get out of his own way.

By signing every pandering bill he could get his hands on, and talking more about his rivals’ shortcomings than his own accomplishments, he reminded everyone why they consider him such a cold cookie.

“It has never been in his nature to sketch out a vision, and explain what he has done toward achieving that vision,” says Sragow, even though Davis has signed landmark bills on family leave and emissions controls and he has overseen improvements in student test scores.

“He’s never said something like, ‘I’ve spent nearly my entire life in elective office because I care about working men and women and want to make sure they have the freedom to live their lives to the full potential.’ ”

Like the folks I found last week at the Elks Club in Palm Springs and a cowboy bar in Beaumont, respondents to the Times poll were particularly fried about Davis tripling vehicle license fees and giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

The latter is classic Davis. He opposed the bill and didn’t sign it. Then, in an act of political desperation, he signed it thinking it might seal the Latino vote. But by then he was only tightening his own noose.

It would have been nice to have more friends to turn to as he dangled in the wind, but, as Charlotte Goland pointed out, the governor never threw any parties.

I don’t know yet if Arnold is going to be Charlotte’s neighbor, because he’s talking about commuting back to Brentwood by private jet if he becomes governor. But you’ve got to figure that if he spends any time in Sacramento, there will be parties, if not an occasional orgy.

Charlotte Goland could go from complaining about the pasty, shut-in Davis, to calling the cops on Arnold.

“He’s a messenger,” says Sragow, who correctly says that people don’t favor Arnold so much as they despise Davis. The message, Sragow says, is that Davis is the poster boy for a screwed-up system that’s rotten with self-absorbed leaders who sell out to the highest bidders.

That part I understand. But you’d think we could find a better messenger than someone who got stoned in “Pumping Iron,” abused steroids to become Mr. Universe, allegedly slept with his friend’s mate just to boast about the conquest, skipped 13 of the last 21 elections, broke nearly every campaign promise, doesn’t even pretend to have a rescue plan for California, and might have been an illegal immigrant himself.

Get ready for an adventure. We don’t know what we’d be getting in Arnold, and Arnold has no idea what he’s in for in Sacramento, where the problems are bigger than one man. Even if he is artificially pumped up.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.