At Fresno Rally, Bustamante Switches Spotlight to Himself

In a significant shift of campaign strategy, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante on Sunday moved away from urging a “no” vote in the Oct. 7 recall election, abandoning Gov. Gray Davis to fight alone and focusing instead on the merits of his own candidacy.

During a jubilant rally before some 2,000 supporters at the Fresno Convention Center, Bustamante spent nearly 40 minutes outlining why he should be elected to succeed Davis, painting himself as a staunch defender of workers and immigrants who will help expand the middle class.

“I am just like you,” Bustamante told a sea of supporters, mostly Latinos, who waved Bustamante signs as a crew filmed the event for a series of television commercials.

In previous speeches, Bustamante had criticized the recall and urged supporters to vote against it. On Sunday, he made no such argument. Bustamante said after his speech that he had repeated his “no on the recall” line once, at the end of the speech, but cheers drowned out the words.

Bustamante told reporters that he is not dropping the anti-recall aspect of his campaign, but that he needs to make the case that if Davis is recalled he is the best answer to the ballot’s second question: Who among the 135 candidates should take over?

“The governor is focused on the first question, and I have to be focused on the second,” Bustamante said. “I’ve got to be able to make sure and distinguish myself in terms of my ideas and what I do, and so that’s where I’m focused.”

Bustamante denied that he was reneging on his promise to fight the recall. “How do you expect me to compete if I don’t focus?” he said.

Bustamante strategist Richie Ross said the campaign decided on the shift because Davis has ample resources to publicize the “No on the recall” campaign.

“They don’t need as much help as they did before,” Ross said. “And we’ve got to get on television and deliver a clear message about why Cruz Bustamante is the best candidate among the replacement candidates.”

Shortly before Bustamante spoke, three state legislators -- Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno) and Sens. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier) and Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) -- endorsed Bustamante’s candidacy. None urged a “no” vote on the recall question.

Bustamante’s change in rhetoric could jeopardize attempts by Democratic party leaders to keep the party unified going into the Oct. 7 election, in which Bustamante is the only major Democratic candidate facing a fragmented Republican field made up of Arnold Schwarzenegger, state Sen. Tom McClintock and Peter V. Ueberroth.

Arianna Huffington and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo have also drawn measurable support in the race.

Bustamante’s words also seemed likely to further chill an already frosty relationship with the governor. On Sunday, the Davis campaign had little to say about the Bustamante shift.

“The entire Democratic party and our friends in the labor movement are unified behind ‘No on the Recall,’ and I’d be real surprised if Cruz was breaking ranks with us,” said Peter Ragone, a spokesman for Davis.

Bustamante grew up in the Fresno-area town of Dinuba, and the Sunday gathering had the feel of a hometown rally.

Supporters jammed into the convention hall with signs like “Dinubians for Cruz” and white T-shirts that read “Bustamante -- From Our Valley.”

Lucy Covarrubias, a resident of Orange Clover, said people in her small town near Dinuba are buzzing about Bustamante’s candidacy.

“We’re practically neighbors,” the Fresno State student said. “I feel like he’s one of us.”

Debbie Reyes, a Web page designer from Fresno, sat in the front row of the convention hall holding a sign that said, “Welcome Home.”

“He’s a valley boy,” she said. “He’s our hometown son.”

Bustamante played up the hometown connection, making an ardent appeal to working class voters by promising to make more businesses provide health care and back union efforts to raise wages.

He vowed to protect the “human rights” of immigrants, saying “few groups of people are more exploited, intimidated, used and discarded.”

“They have died in service of this country, and Arnold [is] saying they can’t have driver’s licenses?” Bustamante said, referring to Schwarzenegger’s opposition to a bill signed by Davis on Friday to allow illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses.

In his news conference, Bustamante went further when asked if he saw any differences between legal and illegal immigrants.

“I think that anybody who works and pays taxes ought to have a right for citizenship,” he said.

He deflected a question about whether that meant he would support open borders, but said later that he would back an amnesty program for illegal immigrants living in California.

Bustamante also contrasted his background with that of Schwarzenegger, who he said “lives on Planet Hollywood.”

“Arnold doesn’t share our values,” Bustamante said. “He doesn’t live like we do. He doesn’t have the worries that we have.”

Schwarzenegger’s campaign accused Bustamante of employing “race-based politics.”

“We’re curious for Mr. Bustamante to define what ‘our values’ are,” said Sean Walsh, a spokesman for the Schwarzenegger campaign. “Is he playing class warfare? Is he playing ethnic warfare?”

While Bustamante campaigned in the Central Valley, Schwarzenegger, the Republican front-runner, spent the day with softball players in Santa Fe Springs and financial backers in Thousand Oaks.

Schwarzenegger visited the Inner City Games softball tournament in Sante Fe Springs, which was added to his schedule after he was dropped from a Mexican Independence Day parade in East Los Angeles.

The tournament attracted 27 teams and Schwarzenegger handed out winners’ medals and threw T-shirts to a crowd of about 100 people who listened to a short speech on the value of after-school programs.

Schwarzenegger’s campaign aides used the opportunity to give reporters copies of a story from the Sacramento Bee that quoted Davis as having said at a rally on Saturday that a candidate who cannot pronounce the name of the state should not be governor.

Schwarzenegger told reporters that Davis apparently does not like the way he pronounces California, then added: “There are many other words he doesn’t like.... He doesn’t like blackout. He doesn’t like energy crisis. And he definitely doesn’t like recall.”

Todd Harris, a Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman, called Davis’ comment “unbelievable,” and added: “Gov. Davis owes Arnold Schwarzenegger and every other immigrant in the state who has come in pursuit of the American dream an apology.”

Davis, speaking briefly to reporters at a Mexican Independence Day parade in East Los Angeles, acknowledged the remark.

“I was just joking around with someone in the crowd,” he said. He went on to add that “I’ll tell you it’s no joke when Arnold Schwarzenegger votes for [Proposition] 187, and it’s no joke when he tells people the first thing he is going to do ... is to repeal the bill I signed giving immigrants the right to drive in this state.”

Schwarzenegger, at his appearance, took questions from reporters for the fifth straight day. His once tight-lipped campaign has recently begun to compare Schwarzenegger’s accessibility to that of his opponents, arguing that Schwarzenegger is more open.

Schwarzenegger also was pressed repeatedly on immigration issues. He said he supports a proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to create a special visa program for guest workers.

Although Schwarzenegger opposes the bill to provide driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, he would be open to providing licenses to people taking part in an expanded guest worker program, he said.

“Speed that process up” he said of new guest worker legislation, “then you go and give driver’s licenses to everybody and then tie it to car insurance,” he said.

He disputed Democratic suggestions that he was anti-immigrant, saying, “I love Mexico. I’ve done four movies down there.”

Finally, he said his opposition to Proposition 54, the ballot initiative that would ban the state from collecting certain types of racial data, reflected his desire that “everyone be treated equally at the start.”

“Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that. I would’ve voted differently” on Proposition 54, he said. But, he added, his time visiting schools in inner-city areas had tempered his thinking.

Afterward, Schwarzenegger -- who has said he will not take contributions from special interests -- attended back-to-back fundraisers at Thousand Oaks’ Ventura Farms, owned by David H. Murdock, a member of Schwarzenegger’s economic team who completed a $2.5-billion buyout of Dole Food Co., earlier this year.

Several hundred people attended the $500-per-head barbecue, which was followed by a more exclusive dinner inside the Farm’s conservatory for a handful of supporters who had given the maximum $21,200 contribution, according to a campaign fundraising document.

In Glendale, Ueberroth continued what he has called his “tortoise and hare” race for governor -- he has been criticized for a late and slow start -- by unveiling his debut TV ad during a web cast issues forum.

The 30-second ad, which is to begin airing in the state’s major markets today, is aimed at building on Ueberroth’s image as a troubleshooter.

In the forum, Ueberroth said the erosion of 300,000 jobs from California over the past 2 1/2 years pointed up the need to make it easier for companies to do business in California.

He again proposed an income tax rebate for businesses that create at least 10 jobs paying $30,000 or more a year with health benefits and said he would create a network of “Jobs Commissioners” to help retain companies thinking of leaving the state.

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Times staff writers Gregg Jones and Scott Martelle contributed to this report.