Davis Wins ... Bowling Match

On the final leg of Gov. Gray Davis’ three-day campaign blitz around the state, the mood turned giddy as his chartered 737 took off from San Francisco International Airport for Burbank late Monday afternoon.

Labor leader Art Pulaski suggested a makeshift bowling competition and Ed Emerson, the governor’s advance man and campaign comedian, took the challenge.

Campaign press secretary Gabriel Sanchez produced an orange and the game was on.

Emerson took a shot and sent the orange rolling down the aisle toward a bottle of water at the rear of the aircraft, narrowly missing. Pulaski took his turn and missed.

The orange was rolled up the aisle of the ascending aircraft to Davis, who took predictably careful aim, then sent the orange hurtling from his front-section seat. Midway down the aisle, it ricocheted off the seats on one side, ricocheted off the other side and rolled down the center of the aisle into the side of a grocery bag set up as a new target.

Campaign staffers and reporters cheered and Sanchez observed: “It’s just like Gray Davis’ policies -- a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right and straight down the middle.”

Stations Asked to Pull Anti-Schwarzenegger Ad

Lawyers for Arnold Schwarzenegger have sent a letter to television stations throughout the state calling on them to stop airing a new commercial critical of the candidate’s treatment of women.

The advertisement, produced last week by the Internet-based political action group MoveOn.org, quotes Schwarzenegger from a magazine article describing a scene from “Terminator 3” in which he pushes a female character’s head into a toilet.

Thomas W. Hiltachk, the lawyer who sent the letter Friday, said the commercial is slanderous.

In an interview, Hiltachk said he knew of no stations that had pulled the ad because of the letter.

He also said he had no intention of going to court to seek an injunction to enforce the letter. He did, however, want to send a message.

“We wanted to let the stations know how we felt about the commercial,” he said.