it's interesting that before the list of candidates closed, the polls where nearly invisible. now they are coming thick and fast.
R
Poll shows Bustamante leading Schwarzenegger
By Gary Delsohn -- Bee Capitol Bureau - (Published August 16, 2003)
There are 135 candidates on the ballot, but the campaign to replace Gov. Gray Davis is currently a two-man race, with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante taking a three-point lead over movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger among those likely to vote in the Oct. 7 recall election.
A Field Poll released Friday shows that if Davis is recalled, as 68 percent of likely voters believe he will be, Bustamante and Schwarzenegger would far outpace the rest of the possible replacement field.
"He's in an enviable position," pollster Mark DiCamillo said of the Democratic lieutenant governor who only three weeks ago insisted he wouldn't run. "I don't think voters really know a lot about the candidates right now, but this is their preference prior to the start of the campaign."
Bustamante is in the lead among likely voters with 25 percent to Republican Schwarzenegger's 22 percent. Trailing the leaders are state Sen. Tom McClintock, a Simi Valley Republican, at 9 percent; Republican businessman Bill Simon, who narrowly lost to Davis last November, 8 percent; former baseball commissioner and Republican Peter Ueberroth, 5 percent; independent political commentator Arianna Huffington, 4 percent; and Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate, 2 percent.
DiCamillo and others cautioned that the poll numbers are bound to change as candidates begin getting their message out with television ads and the now 53-day-long campaign begins in earnest, provided Friday's ruling by a federal court in San Jose doesn't delay the election.
Sean Walsh, a spokesman for the Schwarzenegger campaign, said he has seen more than a half-dozen polls, including recent ones by NBC and CNN, that have Schwarzenegger ahead of Bustamante.
"There will be dozens and dozens of polls between now and Election Day that will be all over the map," Walsh said. "We are not concerning ourselves with the polls that come out on a daily basis. We are intently focused on presenting our goals and vision to California citizens. Period." There are revealing signs, however, among the early numbers that highlight significant challenges and opportunities for the candidates.
Schwarzenegger, for instance, is drawing just 34 percent support from likely voters who consider themselves conservatives. The GOP's two conservatives on the ballot, McClintock and Simon, are sharing 39 percent of the conservative vote.
"What you can see in this poll is that the conservatives are going to hold the key to Arnold," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
"If the conservatives go over to Arnold, then you've got a really tight race and maybe Arnold wins easily. But as long as significant blocs of Republican voters are sticking with McClintock and Simon, Arnold is very handicapped in a race that becomes a partisan race."
The dynamic has some Republicans worried.
In Southern California, where President Bush was promoting his administration's environmental record Friday, two Republican officials from Los Angeles said the party needs to unite behind one candidate -- preferably Schwarzenegger.
"If the three candidates split the vote, Bustamante will win and you will have Gray Davis 2," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. [mike is a right winger from way back.]
Supervisor Don Knabe agreed.
"Schwarzenegger freaks out conservative Republicans, but this election is about more than just guns and abortion," he said. "If it gets bloody at the end, and Republicans are still split, the next governor is going to be Bustamante."
McClintock and Simon insist they're in the race to stay.
"Forget it," McClintock said about the possibility of him dropping out. "I'm very pleased with the momentum we're showing."
Schwarzenegger, considered a moderate Republican who supports gun control, gay rights and a woman's right to choose on abortion, has said he wants to attract support from throughout the political spectrum.
In addition to his more traditionally Democratic views on hot-button issues, he has signed up investor Warren Buffett and is courting actor Rob Lowe, both of whom support Democratic principles and candidates.
"That's a very important strategy," Cain said. "I think you'll see Arnold add as many Democrats to his campaign team as possible and hope it doesn't turn into a purely partisan race."
For the Bustamante campaign, pollster DiCamillo said the numbers reveal he has considerable room to add support within his own party. The results show, for instance, that 48 percent of Democrats support the lieutenant governor. Schwarzenegger gets 9 percent support from Democrats who say they're likely to vote. McClintock and Simon get 2 percent each from Democrats.
That leaves 39 percent of the state's Democrats who say they support other candidates, are undecided or support no one.
"Forty-five percent of the likely voters are Democrats," DiCamillo said, "and about half of them right now are lining up for Bustamante. The good news for him is that there are still quite a few Democrats out there that he can appeal to and harvest their votes."
Richie Ross, the Democratic consultant who is managing Bustamante's campaign, said he intends to go after those votes by capitalizing on Bustamante's reputation as a hard-working, down-to-earth public servant who can identify with everyday California voters and their concerns.
"The earliest decision we made early on was no speechwriters," Ross said. "Put him out there, kind of -- there he is. Good enough or not. Have at it, boys and girls.
"Because when it comes to packaging, you can't construct a package that will look and smell or be done as slick or as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger. You just can't."
Bustamante echoed the same theme Friday, obviously pleased that the Field Poll currently shows him in front.
"I'm a regular guy," he said. "I knew a long time ago I wasn't the smartest kid in class, but the kind of values and work ethic my parents brought me gave me a pathway to work the rest of my life. "I bring a practical way of doing things, nothing fancy, straight ahead, a straight-forward kind of person. ... Just making sure things are getting done."
Bustamante, who said he'll release a detailed plan next week about how to solve California's ongoing budget crisis, is expecting to get another lift today when, according to sources, 24 members of the Democratic Latino caucus are scheduled to meet in Sacramento and vote to oppose the recall but endorse Bustamante as the replacement candidate.
Senate Democrats and the state's Democratic congressional delegation are expected to follow suit early next week. Bustamante has said many times he's against the recall but that he finally decided to run when he realized Davis was in trouble and Democrats would lose the office if they didn't have a strong candidate on the ballot.
That makes sense to one poll respondent, Nathan Dean, 34, a Fresno State University graduate student and registered Democrat who voted for Davis in November and opposes the recall.
"He's a Valley Democrat," Dean said of Bustamante. "He's my party. I'm bound to benefit most from him."
The Field Poll, conducted by telephone from Sunday to Wednesday, interviewed 629 registered voters. It has an error rate of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
About the Writer --------------------------- The Bee's Gary Delsohn can be reached at (916) 326-5545 or gdelsohn at sacbee.com. Bee staff writers Laura Mecoy, Aurelio Rojas and Ed Fletcher contributed to this report.
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Quis custodiet istos custodes? (Who will watch the watchers?)
-- Juvenal's Satires, circa 110 AD