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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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September 09, 2003

'Yes on Bustamante/Yes on Bustamante'

The Associated Press has a story on the wire saying that the Bustamante campaign is “officially abandoning” its no-on-recall strategy and is focusing exclusively on electing Cruz governor. While that’s been evident in practice for many days now, this would be the first time Bustamante or his campaign team acknowledged as much in public. Cruz of course still officially opposes the recall. He's just admitting now that his opposition is no longer part of his campaign strategy.

Here is the key quote from Richie Ross, Bustamante’s chief consultant, who says the shift was brought on by Bustamante’s increasingly unfavorable image among the voters:

“We have been put in a position of constantly defending negative charges That has resulted in this increasing unfavorable number and has caused us to shift more of our emphasis to presenting a positive case to the voters as to why Cruz Bustamante would be an excellent governor."

Here is the story.