Presidential Hopeful Howard Dean Gives Davis a Lift

Needing a lift from an influential Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis got one Saturday from the party’s front-running presidential candidate, Howard Dean, who in a joint appearance urged defeat of the recall effort and accused President Bush and his top political aide of “having their hand” in the movement.

Dean, the former Vermont governor, said the recall campaign fits a national pattern of Republican attempts to overturn elections they could not win on their own. He cited Bush’s victory in the 2000 elections and congressional redistricting battles in Colorado and Texas.

“I believe the right wing of the Republican Party is deliberately undermining the democratic underpinnings of this country,” Dean said, standing beside Davis at a Sheraton Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport. “I believe they do not care what Americans think and do not accept the legitimacy of elections.”

Dean’s accusation that Bush and political advisor Karl Rove are playing an unspecified role in the recall effort drew a terse reply from the White House. “I would dismiss those charges as baseless. This is a matter for the people of California to decide,” said Taylor Gross, a White House spokesman

Dean attended the morning news conference at Davis’ invitation. The governor said he would ask all nine Democratic presidential hopefuls to “stand up and speak out against the recall” when they come to California to campaign.

For a candidate seeking the Democratic nomination to stand side by side with a governor whose approval rating is in the low 20s amounts to something of a risk. Asked why he had agreed to do it, Dean said: “My trademark is to say what I think, for better or worse.... I’m tired of this country being run by the right wing. That’s not where most people are in this country. This is not about Gray Davis. This is about whether America continues to be a democracy or whether we’re going to be a country dominated by the far right to serve their own purposes and not the purposes of America.”

Each man offered supportive words for the other, but stopped short of an unqualified testimonial. Though he praised Dean’s credentials as a onetime governor, Davis said he would not endorse a Democratic presidential candidate until the recall question is settled. “I’m taking one election at a time,” he said.

Simon’s Fund-Raising Letter Causes Confusion

Former GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon Jr. may be out of the recall race, but he’s still asking for money.

A fund-raising solicitation Simon sent out days before he dropped his gubernatorial bid Aug. 23 is just now reaching some voters, much to their confusion. Montebello resident Jacqueline Carr said that when she received the letter this week, she thought Simon was back in the race.

No such luck, according to Wayne Johnson, Simon’s former campaign consultant. “It was obviously mailed out before he got out and the contributions are being returned,” Johnson said.

In the one-page letter, printed on yellow paper and designed to look like a Western Union telegram, Simon writes that “this is our best and perhaps only chance to elect a conservative governor.” He calls actor Arnold Schwarzenegger “extremely liberal,” noting the actor’s support for abortion rights and gun control.

Protest Groups Target Schwarzenegger Office

The opening of Schwarzenegger’s new headquarters for campaign volunteers has been targeted recently by several Santa Monica-based protest groups.

On Friday, demonstrators clogged the sidewalks on both sides of the street in front of the Santa Monica headquarters.

Most of the protesters were part of an antiwar group called Code Pink. The group handed out lists of quotes from Schwarzenegger interviews promoting body building and his movies. They called the quotations misogynist and said they made Schwarzenegger unfit for public office.

Despite their stated reasons for their protest, Code Pink members said their real concern was not Schwarzenegger’s statements about women, but his ties to the Bush White House and his support for the war in Iraq.

As Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, cut a ribbon for the new volunteer headquarters, Code Pink members unfurled a “Pink Slip” from the balcony of an office building across the street.

The two-story-high banner, which was made of pink cotton, bore the words in white cloth, “Arnold you’re terminated.”