California Insider

The LA Times Poll has the recall leading 56-42 and Arnold leading the replacement race 40-32 over Bustamante, with McClintock at 15. Here is the story.

UPDATE: Here is the PDF with the full results. Note...Latinos back the recall by 50-47, and 37 percent intend to vote for either Schwarzenegger or McClintock.

Cruz has played the race card -- in an interview in Spanish with Xochitl Arellano on KUVS, the Univision Television affiliate in Sacramento. The station has translated the interview and sent a transcript to reporters covering the campaign:

"No one is asking me how much money I get from the Latino community, or from African-Americans, or from people in the Jewish community, or any other group," said Bustamante. "No one else, just the indigenous tribal governments. Why is that?" When asked if he saw this as racial discrimination, Bustamante responded: "Well, that's how it is, I think, sometimes. And I believe we need leaders who can unite, not divide, people."

The gubernatorial candidate spoke out repeatedly on his support for immigrants, and expressed his hope that they would support him in the upcoming elections: "If every person in the immigrant communities went out and voted, I could succeed just with their votes."

To read the entire transcript, download the file here.

UPDATE. The Condor faults me here for heading my item with a direct quote from the transcript, "They are against food." He suggests that the Univision translation was less than accurate. He says the phrase Bustamante used doesn't have a perfect translation from Spanish to English, but he suggests a closer call would have been: "They are against good nutrition."

The latest candidate to enter the Democratic presidential race – Gen. Wesley Clark – will be in California Wednesday to pay his respects to Davis and weigh in against the recall. Clark will be the sixth of the ten to stop by. The four who have not yet come to lend their support are Kucinich, Mosley-Braun, Sharpton and Gephardt, although all of them signed a letter urging voters to keep Davis in office.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said today that absentee voting so far is up more than 50 percent from last year’s election, even after a week of dead time while the federal courts put the election on hold. Shelley said 1.1 million Californians have voted already, compared to about 700,000 who had voted by this time in 2002. About 2.8 million Californians have requested absentee ballots. Shelley believes this to be a record but isn’t sure because counties haven’t kept records on this in the past.

In other news, Shelley laid out a timeline for a transition if Davis loses, and it’s going to shock some people: a new governor would probably not take office until Nov. 15, 39 days after the Oct. 7 election, and possibly as late as Nov. 25.

Shelley said the counties have 28 days to complete their official canvas of the vote, then 7 days to get Board of Supervisor sign-off. Shelley then has four days to certify the election. Finally, the winning candidate can take up to 10 days to be sworn in if he or she chooses.

Almost overnight, conventional wisdom around the campaign has focused on Arianna Huffington and how long she will remain in the race. Many think that Cruz Bustamante’s endorsement of her public financing initiative Sunday was part of a choreographed dance leading up to her quitting the race and endorsing Cruz. At the moment she is hovering in the very low single digits, so it’s hard to say that her exit would have much of a direct effect on the race. But Bustamante needs all the help he can get, especially a jolt of something to bring him out of a long campaign stupor. Arianna is nothing if not a jolt. She would certainly send a signal to the left that it's ok to back Cruz, which can't hurt at this point.

UPDATE: She will announce her decision on Larry King Live, and now there's speculation that she won't go for Cruz but will just be No on Recall. That would be amazing given her condemnation of Gray and his special interest politics. I guess we will just have to watch and see.

UPDATE: Bill Bradley at the LA Weekly reports that Arianna will not endorse a candidate on question 2. He adds that actor Warren Beatty has been advising both Huffington and Davis during the recall. Read the whole thing here.

Here is my column from today's Bee, in which I note that none of the major candidates has leveled with the voters about the pain that will be required to balance the next state budget. I could do another whole column speculating about what a Schwarzenegger budget might look like if he is elected. My early guess is that the only way out for him would be the federal government. He has already dropped hints on this front, suggesting that the feds owe us for the cost of serving illegal immigrants, and noting that the state doesn't get back anywhere near what its residents pay in taxes to Washington. And wouldn't President Bush, seeking reelection in a tough economic and political climate, love to be the one to bail out California -- and Schwarzenegger -- from a mess left by the state's only Democratic governor in 20 years? Republicans in Congress, eager for fundraising and campaign help from their celebrity governor, might also go along. At a minimum they could structure some or all of it as a federal bailout package, a loan to be repaid over 20 years.

If Schwarzenegger could get something on the order of $5 billion from Bush, $1 billion from the Indians, and $1 billion from a McClintock-style scouring of state government, and couple that with $2 billion in budget cuts of the kind proposed earlier this year by Gray Davis but rejected by the Democrats in the Legislature, he might be in the ballpark of a balanced budget. But without money from Washington, big money, I don't see any way he could present a realistic plan by January to balance the books for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2004.

The CNN/USA Today poll asked voters to decide hypothetical matchups between Bustamante and each of the two leading Republican candidates. Among likely voters, Schwarzenegger beat Bustamante by 58-36. McClintock beat him 56-37. See the chart here. The questions are numbers 5 and 6.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been blasted by the left for glorifying the use of make-believe guns in his movies. Now Dave Kopel at the National Review Online comments on Schwarzenegger's relative ignorance of California law governing the use of the real thing.

More anecdotal evidence that a high turnout is in the offing: The Mercury reports that absentee voting has surged again since the court-induced delay was resolved, and the Chronicle notes that a record number of absentee ballots – 2.7 million – have been requested in this election. More than 1.1 million people have already voted by mail. And the flood of absentee ballots expected on election day will mean that if the race is close, the outcome might not be known for several days.

NOTE: An earlier version of this item repeated the Mercury's assertion that 1.7 million had already voted. The Secretary of State says 1.1 million have voted by mail already, still well ahead of last year's pace.

Jim Norman, the polling editor of USA Today, has just sent me a note trying to answer some of the questions that have been raised about the poll released Sunday. I am reprinting most of it here:

"Gallup initially interviewed 1,007 Californians. Of those, 787 identified themselves as registered voters. Of those, 581 were deemed 'probable voters' based on their answers to two questions: (1) how likely they were to vote; and (2) how interested they were in the election.

"When weighting techniques were applied to the entire sample of 1,007, the 581 probable voters became 509. That's how we wound up with 51%, which represents the percentage of the voting-age population, not of registered voters. (Probable voters represented about 70% of self-identified registered voters -- but we know a lot of these people aren't telling the truth.)

"Voter turnout in California, as a percentage of the total voting-age population, for the last four presidential elections, according to the Census:
2000 46%
1996 48%
1992 53%
1988 52%

"Some further information: When looking at the weighted sample of registered voters, 34% were self-identified Republicans (no leaners) and 38% self-identified Democrats. When leaners (those who initially identified themselves as independents but said they leaned to one party or the other) are included, there were 44% Republicans and 48% Democrats. The 4-point gap closely corresponds to the 7-point gap Gallup found for Californians when they combined all of our 2002 polling.

"One other piece of information: Probable voters in this poll are not entirely comparable to Gallup's likely-voter model because the likely-voter model includes a question on how often people have voted in such elections before, and California hasn't had an election like this before."

This was given to me by a person whose motive was to get some good news out there about the state's budget picture, but here are the latest numbers on tax receipts from the state Department of Finance: An internal department memo says taxes due Sept. 15 ran ahead of forecast, and revenues overall for the month are expected to be about $400 million higher than projected. The memo says that income tax withholding was up $120 million, other personal income tax receipts are about $200 million ahead of projections, and corporate tax revenues are expected to end the month up about $75 million. No information is yet available on sales tax receipts for the month.

The California Republican Party board of directors has just voted to endorse Schwarzenegger in the race to replace Davis if he is recalled. I have questioned the value of this endorsement in the past, and even suggested that it might hurt Schwarzenegger as much as it helps him -- by making McClintock out to be a folk hero, or by giving Davis more ammo with which to rally the Democratic base. But people with experience in party politics say I am overlooking the fact that the endorsement allows Arnold to blanket California Republican voters with mail and phone calls reminding them that he is the official choice of their party, and that this alone is worth any blowback he gets from either McClintock or the Democrats. Perhaps. But I think this race might be beyond all that anyway. It really is now a campaign between Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as perhaps it was destined to be from the start. If voters feel comfortable with Schwarzenegger, if they sense that he can do this job, then the recall will pass and he will probably win. If Davis can do something in the final week to dislodge that impression, with personal dirt or by making his case that Schwarzenegger is not ready for prime time, then the recall would fail. A Republican Party endorsement at this point seems almost beside the point.

Rep. Darrell Issa is challenging Davis to debate the recall, saying that since he was the major force behind it, Davis should argue its merits with him while staying out of the discussion on question 2. Creative ploy. But I doubt Davis will take him up on it. The success or failure of the recall probably rests now on voter perceptions of Schwarzenegger and whether he can do the job. He is the one Davis has to take down, not Issa.

Here is a link to the USA Today chart on the CNN/USA Today Poll. It shows the 63-35 margin for the recall among "probable voters," which seems to be their word for what others call "likely" voters. Among all registered voters in this poll, the recall leads by a 55-41 margin. There remains some confusion about turnout assumptions. CNN reproted that the poll assumed a 51 percent turnout of eligible voters, which equates to about 70 percent of registered voters. This report from USA Today simply says that the sample of "probable voters" assumes a "51 percent turnout." It doesn't specify whether that is of registered voters or eligible voters. The distinction is very important.

UPDATE: Here are some more clues buried in footnotes spread among the poll charts. The poll appears to be based on 369 Democrats and Democrat/leaners and 356 Republican/Republican leaners out of a sample of 787 registered voters. I don't know what a "leaner" is when you are asking people how they are registered, but leaving that aside, this would mean the sample is 47 percent Democrat and 45 percent Republican. That's more of each group, and far fewer independents, than you normally see in a California poll sample. Beyond that, the poll charts note that there were 286 Republicans considered "most probable to vote." If that is out of the same subset of 581 "probable voters" listed at the bottom of the chart, Republicans as a share of the probable vote would be 49 percent. That's not impossible, if Republicans are supercharged to vote and Dems stay home, but it would certainly explain the huge margin for the recall that the poll found among "probable voters."

A CNN/USA Today poll by Gallup released today shows the recall leading 63-35, with Schwarzenegger ahead of Bustamante in the replacement election 40-25, and McClintock at 18. The poll assumes that about half of eligible voters will go to the polls, compared to a little over one-third a year ago. That would equate to a turnout of about 70 percent of registered voters.

Here is a sad story in the Monterey County Herald about a strange visit to Salinas by Cruz Bustamante.

While everybody is bracing for late dirt on Arnold, two California papers today dish out some late dirt on Cruz:

The Fresno Bee reports that Bustamante, who completed his college degree late in life, was given preferential treatment by getting credit for a speech class he never attended. Cruz got the credit after a professor reviewed his public speeches for a few minutes and determined that he would get at least a “C” in the class if he were required to attend.

And the LA Times reports on Bustamante’s rental property and suggests strongly that he might have used it to improperly reduce his taxes. The home, which he rents through a federally subsidized program for low-income people, has also failed several inspections, the Times reports.

Several of the state’s major papers ring in this morning with editorials on the recall – and almost all of them are negative. The Bee, the LA Times and the San Jose Mercury all recommend a No vote on the recall and pointedly refuse to endorse on the replacement question. The Times and the Bee take time to rip all the major contenders, while the Mercury pretty much ignores them. The San Diego Union-Tribune, meanwhile, endorses the recall after admitting its earlier misgivings, and endorses Arnold in the race to replace. UPDATE: The Long Beach Press-Telegram endorses Arnold.

Here are the editorials.

The Bee: Vote no on recall

The Bee’s separate editorial on the replacement election, No clear choice

UPDATE: The Bee's editorialists are offering their individual views on the replacement election at the Ed Board's blog, Fly on the Wall.

The LA Times: Why the Recall is Wrong

The Mercury: No…and nobody
and Davis is Lucky

The Union-Tribune: Davis must go
and Arnold the Outsider

Long Beach: Recall Davis, Elect Arnold

The California Republican Party has scheduled an emergency board of directors meeting for Monday at 1 p.m. in Burbank to consider endorsing a candidate in the recall replacement election. It's clear that at least some of the directors want the party to go on record endorsing Arnold. Once again, this bullying of McClintock strikes me as futile. Unless he has sent a signal that he would withdraw if the pary directors endorse Arnold, I don't see how this will change anything, other than to give McClintock one more "backroom deal" to rail against and give his supporters one more reason to consider him a hero. Then again, with Arnold and Cruz running neck-and-neck, if Arnold can somehow take half or more of the 15 percent to 18 percent now backing McClintock, it might provide the margin of victory. I'm just not a fan of political parties, especially when they act this way, so I have a natural adverse reaction to this sort of thing. I still think Arnold gets those votes anyway on Election Day, but doing it this way further polarizes the race and makes it tougher for him to win crossover and independent votes.

Final two paragraphs of a story posted today at CNN.Com:

"Saturday, Bustamante made the unusual move of praising one of the Republican contenders. Bustamante talked up McClintock, who has been taking votes from Schwarzenegger and could spoil the actor's chances if Davis were recalled -- thus allowing Bustamante a chance to win.

"'The one who's really been moving in this race has been Tom McClintock,' Bustamante said at a campaign stop in Los Angeles. 'Tom has done a good job to get up there. ... Tom has a really strong message, and there's a group of people out there who strongly believe in his values.'"

Thanks for the tip from reader JT.

From time to time during this campaign we have checked in with the betting at TradeSports.com, where you can buy futures contracts on the recall and the race to replace. In the latest trading, “recall fails” has dropped from 42 to 23 on a scale of 0-to-100 in just the past few days. A contract on Arnold to win has climbed from 34 to 56. And a contract for Cruz to win has fallen from 31 to 23. McClintock to win: 1.7. The way these contracts work is that you buy them on the trading block at a price set by the market, and if your pick wins, you get back 100. If your pick loses, you get nothing. Caveat: while there are 14,000 of these contracts in circulation, daily trading is quite light and might be subject to manipulation.

In the big debate Wednesday night, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante made what might have sounded to some viewers like a creative proposal for reforming workers compensation: give safety discounts to employers with injury-free worksites. Like “good driver” discounts in auto insurance, Bustamante said, his idea would reward good behavior and penalize bad behavior, presumably leading to lower rates for firms that do the right thing.

“There’s no incentive for a good workplace and a bad workplace because they get paid or they get a premium that’s exactly the same amount,” Bustamante said. “So if we were to provide a worker, a safe-workplace discount, and we’d be able to have an incentive for those people who are not doing a good job to do a better job, we could lower premiums on those that are good worksites and increase the premiums on those that have the bad worksites.”

Amazing concept. Maybe that’s why it has long been the concept at the heart of workers compensation insurance. Called “experience modification,” it works like this: every company is assessed a basic rate according to its industry, based broadly on the risk involved in its work. Roofers pay a lot more than paper pushers for each dollar of payroll. But after that rating is done, it is modified by experience. Just one expensive injury claim can drive a company’s rates up dramatically, by 50 percent or more. They generally stay up for three years and then decline only if the firm is claim-free. A good safety record gets you – guess what – a discount!

Cruz’s idea, in other words, already exists, as any insurance seller or business owner could have told him.

A few weeks ago, in a speech in Fresno, Bustamante gave a fundamentally incorrect description of the way the state got into its budget mess, arguably the number one issue in the recall election. This week, in the biggest debate of the campaign, Bustamante gave a fundamentally incorrect description of the way workers compensation works, arguably the second most important issue in the campaign and the issue at the heart of the debate over the state’s business climate.

People make mistakes. I understand that. But these statements were not on trivial matters. They were not off the cuff. And they reveal a total misunderstanding of the basic forces at work on the state’s most debated problems. Experience in government, it seems, is no guarantee that a candidate knows what he is talking about.

One of the untold stories of this campaign is the degree to which Democrats have helped Tom McClintock stay competitive in the race to replace. Everyone by now knows that the casino gaming tribes, which clearly favor Bustamante, are helping McClintock in what appears to be a strategy of pulling votes away from Schwarzenegger. But Democrats also have given McClintock a completely free pass on policy positions he has taken that are opposed to everything Democrats believe in.

This is why it’s pure fantasy for McClintock fans to say their man could win if only Schwarzenegger would pull out and endorse him. If McClintock ever became a real threat, the Democrats would take off the gloves and pummel him with the same social issues that they used against Republican nominees Dan Lungren in 1998 and Bill Simon last year.

When it was disclosed that Schwarzenegger voted for Proposition 187 in 1994, Democrats labeled the immigrant actor anti-immigrant. But McClintock not only voted for that measure, he wants to revive it today by re-opening a federal court case that Davis settled in 1999. Yet I haven’t heard Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres blasting McClintock lately.

McClintock also opposes abortion and would refuse to fund Medi-Cal abortions for poor women. But we haven’t seen Code Pink or NOW dogging McClintock with protests at every event.

McClintock opposes gun control and gay rights and supports Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative. He wants to eliminate the state Coastal Commission, an icon for a generation of environmentalists. Not a peep from Democratic-leaning interest groups on those issues.

Finally, McClintock, despite his reputation as a master of fiscal detail, has taken liberties on the budget that would get a serious candidate in serious trouble. His contention during this week’s debate that he could cut $18 billion in bureaucratic waste from the state budget “without breaking a sweat” was laughable. There is definitely waste to be cut from the budget, but most of what the state spends from its $71 billion general fund goes to people providing services, such as teachers and doctors, or directly to the poor in welfare payments or aid to the aged, blind and disabled. Yet McClintock’s far-fetched claim went unchallenged by Democrats.

The Democrats are aiding and abetting McClintock, just as they helped Bill Simon in last year’s Republican primary, because they fear the election of a moderate Republican, and they know that such a development would help Republicans regain a foothold in California politics.

Voter registration for the Oct. 7 election will exceed last year's numbers, and turnout on Election Day probably will as well, the Chronicle reports. A survey of counties finds that the ranks of independent voters continue to grow, while Republicans are holding their own and Democrats are facing declines in key counties.

UPDATE: Keep your eye on the Central Valley. This was a surprising Davis stronghold in 1998, and drifted away from him in 2002. Now the Chronicle numbers show that Fresno County, where Republicans had a narrow 43.9-43.0 registration edge a year ago, is today 46.2 percent Republican to 40.5 percent Democrat. That is a massive change in just one year.

UPDATE 2: More anecdotal evidence that a big turnout is brewing, from Contra Costa and Alameda counties. In the Contra Costa Times.

The judge in the Bustamante contributions case ordered the lieutenant governor to make a "good faith" effort to halt the ads he is running and paying for with contributions raised from casino tribes and public employee unions in amounts that far exceed the $21,200 legal limit on campaign donations.

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post loved the recall debate -- and the format. Via Kausfiles.

Gray Davis has just rolled out his first negative ad of the campaign, hitting Schwarzenegger for what he says are misstatements on the budget. The ad says spending went up less under Davis than under both Browns, Deukmejian and Reagan, and notes that 47 other states have deficits “because of the national recession.” Then it adds: “Why can’t Arnold Schwarzenegger get his facts straight? He has no experience. …won’t answer press questions…won’t debate unless he has the questions in advance…and didn’t even bother to vote in 13 of 21 elections….Vote no on the recall.”

According to the Secretary of State's web site, the Morongo Indians just dumped another $1.15 million into their television advertising campaign for Tom McClintock.

Everybody knows that candidates who are leading in the polls don't challenge their opponents to debate. So Gray's challenge to Arnold is a tip-off: the gov's momentum has slowed and he is in trouble, just a week and a weekend before the election. How much trouble?

My sources tell me that two Democratic polls, including one by the California Teachers Assn., show the recall leading 54-40 and 54-41. That's a lot of ground to make-up, even if you subscribe to the wisdom that Davis needs only to shave the 54 down to 49.9, which is true but makes the task seem somewhat easier than it is.

The race to replace in one of the Democratic polls is even between Cruz and Arnold at 30-29, with McClintock at 18. The CTA poll, I am told, has Arnold opening up a five-point lead at 31-26, with McClintock at 15. Still a ton of undecided voters out there.

Author, commentator and radio host Hugh Hewitt has some advice for Schwarzenegger: accept Davis' challenge to debate, and then some. Agree to debate the governor, but only if he'll do three in three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the election. That would suck the air out of the other replacement candidates' campaigns and give Arnold a way to defend against last-minute Democratic hit pieces. Brilliant.

Beneath the debate strategy talk in the Contra Costa Times story on their interview with Arnold was some real news: he wants to expand Indian gaming, essentially adopting the position of the tribes, and without charging them a dime of tribute! Instead of paying him campaign contributions, he wants them to pay the state higher fees, which would have to be considered "mitigation" for the effects of their operations on their neighbors because they can't legally be taxed.

Money passage (pun intended):

On Thursday, he said he would seek a share of Indian gaming revenues similar to the 25 percent that Connecticut receives in agreements with gaming tribes there. That plan mirrors a call by Davis early this year to draw $1.5 billion in Indian gaming revenues. Davis has since retreated from the $1.5 billion goal.

"I want to help (gaming tribes) build it from a $5 billion industry to a $10 billion industry ... Let them increase the amount of slot machines. Boom, let their business go crazy. But let them participate and help us," he said. "It's not even an extra tax. It's just, be fair about this and just come in and give the state some money."

Michael Lewis captures the recall in a fantastic piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. The lead anecdote features an interview with the governor's neighbor, a woman who signed the recall petition and contributed $2,000 to Rescue California. The piece is very long, and very much worth reading.

Earlier today, the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians gave $1.5 million, and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation gave $400,000 to the First Americans for a Better California, their joint political action committee. The committee reported spending $473,000 on a mailing for Bustamante. A few minutes ago, the committee reported spending $1.5 million on a television ad buy for Bustamante.

The Pechanga Indians, meanwhile, gave $76,000 to the California Republican Assembly, a grass roots group that backs McClintock, and $49,000 to Tax Fighters for Tom McClintock. The Barona Indians gave $21,000 directly to McClintock.

This morning, while I was waiting to do a segment on MSNBC, the network aired a piece of a television interview Schwarzenegger had done with the NBC affiliate in Sacramento. The clip they played showed Arnold talking about McClintock, and whether McClintock should drop out of the race, and whether he might directly ask McClintock to drop out of the race.

Returning to the office, I found that yesterday, Schwarzenegger also did a sit-down interview with the Los Angeles Daily News and the Contra Costa Times. Both stories led with lengthy coverage of Arnold's comments on his debate strategy, the fact that he hadn't wanted to share the spotlight with his opponents, but that he was pressured into it because he was tagged as afraid to debate. The headline on the Contra Costa story was "Pressure forced Arnold into Forum."

What is going on here? Is Arnold running for Gray Davis' job or Garry South's old job? I'd blame this on his handlers, but it also says something about Schwarzenegger's own political acumen. When you complain to reporters about the debate over debates taking attention away from your campaign's message, you have just created another day where the debate over debates takes away from your campaign's message. When the candidate is on the air talking about his desire to see an opponent drop from the race, he is not talking about his desire to clean up Sacramento, or improve the economy, or fix the schools. This seems pretty elementary to me.

If I am Schwarzenegger, I brush off every question about McClintock with a smile and a shrug, saying something like: "Well, we are both carrying a similar message in this campaign, that it's time for change in Sacramento. I am that change. And I look forward to working with Sen. McClintock when I become governor." Anything more than that is not just a distraction, it makes McClintock into a folk hero to the right.

If I'm Schwarzenegger and I'm asked about debates, I come up with something similarly mundane and unquotable and change the subject to political corruption or jobs.

At this point McClintock and Davis are the only ones talking about California. Bustamante has disappeared and Arnold is obsessed with political strategy.

I did an hour-long online chat, or question and answer session, this morning about the recall and California politics with the readers of WashingtonPost.com. Here is a transcript.

I have been having a running, private e-mail debate with a non-partisan, non-aligned reader about Arnold’s ads attacking the Indian casino contributions. My correspondent, for whom I have high regard, suggests that the commercials fit a pattern for the Wilson team: they ran against Latinos in 1994 with Proposition 187, against blacks in 1995 (for Wilson’s short-lived presidential campaign) via affirmative action, and now the Indians, under cover of the political reform issue.

My first reaction to this charge was that it was nonsense. From everything I have heard (and not from the Schwarzenegger camp) polls show that the Indians are generally held in high esteem in California, that Californians want them to do well and support their right to run gambiling operations, and attacking them over their casinos is actually a risky strategy. While there might be a strain of anti-gambling sentiment in the electorate, there is no latent anti-Native American sentiment to tap. Besides that, the gaming tribes asked for it: they are the biggest spending interest group in California, they have been throwing their weight around in the Capitol, and they have spent millions of dollars to support Schwarzenegger’s two main opponents: Democrat Cruz Bustamante and Republican Tom McClintock. Schwarzenegger was making special interest influence a theme of his campaign before the Indians even got involved, and in a sense they walked right into his strategy.

But there is that pattern, and in fact it goes back further than my friend suggests. In 1990 Wilson surprised the political world by endorsing term limits, which were in part code for terminating Willie Brown, then the flamboyant, black speaker of the California Assembly. In 1992, in the mid-term elections, the Wilson operation ran against welfare mothers with a ballot measure that would have slashed their benefits. What to make of this, and how do the Indians fit in?

I think it might have more to do with the fact that Wilson and now Schwarzenegger have tried to perform uncomfortable balancing acts at the center of the political spectrum and toward the left of the Republican Party. It is difficult to energize your base when your key issues are children and education and the environment and other such squishy things. There are not too many angry white males beating down doors for the Hydrogen Highway. And even though Schwarzenegger shouldn't have any problem with the macho vote, he does have a problem with true believers in the party who need some raw meat to chew on.

Enter the Indians -- a perfect symbol of special interest influence running amok in Sacramento. My instincts tell me they are the scapegoat du jour not so much because they are an ethnic group but because they are the most convenient target through which the Wilson/Schwarzenegger team can rile up the Republican base, and they fit into Schwarzenegger's "Son of Hiram Johnson" campaign theme. But I am willing to entertain alternative explanations, especially from people who have hard data or intelligence to support the ethnic-based theory. Please let me know if you do.

Think again. The Morongo Band of Mission Indians just reported another $850,000 television ad buy for McClintock. From the Secretary of State's website, tip via RecallWatch.

According to reports we are getting from the local stations, 25 percent of the available televisions in the Sacramento area tuned into the debate Wednesday night. That is huge for a political debate. Haven't seen the statewide numbers yet.

The Republican County chairmen have just endorsed Schwarzenegger in a lopsided vote. Simon has also thrown in with him. Issa will probably be next. The Republican Establishment Primary is over, and Schwarzenegger has won. McClintock has three legislators and thousands of grass roots activists on his side. Even if he stays in, I think his share of the vote will begin to erode and Schwarzenegger's will rise. If it happens quickly enough to show in the next major poll, it could become a stampede.

I can’t remember another political event that generated such widely divergent opinions as last night’s recall debate. I’ve talked to rabid Democrats who thought Arnold did great, and Arnold fans who thought he did poorly. I’ve talked to Republicans who liked Cruz, who thought he was on top of the issues and calm and collected, and Democrats who agreed with my take that he was terribly patronizing when he wasn’t comatose. Some people thought Davis won because the five on stage looked small, while others thought the debate was enlightening, fun and strengthened the case for the recall. The only common ground I am finding is that McClintock excelled by sticking to the issues, playing it straight and explaining the state’s problems and potential solutions in language that everyone could understand. And nearly everyone seems to think that Huffington was an outrageous distraction who took more away from the debate than she contributed. She and her staff – and the Democrats – are suggesting that her exchange with Arnold that prompted his “Terminator 4” line is going to destroy his support among women. Among women, and men, with whom I have talked, I’m not hearing that. She was so aggressive and so rude herself that I think she forfeited any right to play the victim.

I don't think anyone won this debate. Schwarzenegger seemed a little too trigger-happy with his quips and retorts, most if not all of which sounded rehearsed. Bustamante was calm and collected but also rude in a passive-aggressive kind of way. McClintock demonstrated his encyclopedic knowledge of state government, steady and stable as usual, but didn't do anything to wow you. Huffington was shrill and cock-sure while Camejo sounded like a Berkeley economic professor, confident in the justice inherent in his world view but not very realistic. Schwarzenegger said this would be the "Super Bowl" of debates, but his performance was more apt for a pre-season game. He didn't exactly embarrass himself, but neither did he score any touchdowns. It's possible his performance will play better with the casual viewer than a junkie like me. It can be dangerous to judge these affairs before seeing the clips that play on the nightly news. But to me he seemed not terribly distinguished, unable to float above the fray or take up much space in the debate. It's possible that he lost by not winning, but I don't think this debate will prove to be a turning point. The campaign continues toward the finish line pretty much as its been for several weeks: Schwarzenegger unable to shake off McClintock, consolidate the center-right vote and pull away from Bustamante.

If the debate stories you read in your morning papers tomorrow seem a little cranky, here's why: the press facilities at the Sacramento State University debate hall are, well, less than ideal. The debate organizers have issued credentials to more than 500 media members from around the world. But the press room has space for only 50 or 60 reporters to work. Phone lines and power outlets are relatively scarce, and almost all the working space was taken before 4 p.m. To make matters worse, cell phones don't seem to be working inside the room. Say what you want about the press corps being spoiled and pampered, but when you invite folks to your place to do their job, you ought to provide the basic tools they need to work. Fortunately, your blogger arrived early and secured a prime spot, and with the help of an industrious colleague and a Sacramento State student, managed to tap into an unadvertised university wireless network. So no complaints here. But I'm feeling their pain.

UPDATE: I am told by a refugee from the overflow room that there is more space in the basement of the university library. But phone lines are going fast there as well. I still say: the crankiness quotient is and will be on the high side.

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t letting up on the Indian gaming issue. He is hitting harder. Perhaps he realizes that this is not the kind of fight in which you can engage halfway. Once he decided to take them on, he opened himself to a potentially massive counterattack from the gaming tribes, and so now he must go all the way. Today his campaign released a new radio commercial in which an announcer cites the casino tribes as the most powerful special interest in California and notes that they have spent $120 million in the past five years. The ad cites a Sacramento Bee report about a closed-door meeting with the gaming interests where Davis, Bustamante and McClintock “all made promises” to them. It cites an LA Times story on the amount the tribes have given to each of the campaigns. “Only one major candidate doesn’t take their money,” the announcer says. “Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Cut to Arnold:

“Their casinos make billions, yet pay no taxes and virtually nothing to the state. Other states require revenue from Indian gaming, but not us. It’s time for them to pay their fair share. All the other major candidates take their money and pander to them. I don’t play that game.”

The ad is similar to the television commercial Schwarzenegger started running this week but adds the names of his opponents and the details about their relationships with the tribes – no small alteration. Schwarzenegger seems to think he has found the issue to make his “special interest” charge real to the voters, to solidify his position as the only viable outsider who can bring change to Sacramento, even as he has surrounded himself with some of the Capitol’s most experienced insiders. He just might end up making special interest money the number 1 topic for the rest of the campaign.

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal comments astutely here about the rise of the gaming tribes as political players in California and provides new details about a strategy to use McClintock to undermine Schwarzenegger's campaign.

Democrat Garrett Gruener, the Ask Jeeves founder trying to break out of “also-ran” status and into the top tier of candidates on the ballot, is going to use technology to try to insert himself into tonight’s debate. Gruener will be in a separate building at Sacramento State University, with a television, a digital recorder and a web camera trained on him, and his own moderator. Gruener will answer any questions put directly to the candidates and then respond in real time to the discussion among the five who are allowed into the debate hall. The whole thing will be webcast live on his site, which you can find here.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has shaken the state’s fiscal house of cards with a ruling blocking the sale of nearly $2 billion in bonds the state hoped to use to pay its obligation to the pension fund this year. The pension bond sale was always the shakiest of the three debt pillars upon which the budget rests. But Tuesday’s ruling could lead to a similar ruling in a much more important case involving the $10.7 billion deficit bond that is the cornerstone of California’s fiscal plan. If a judge rules that this bond, too, violates a constitutional ban on borrowing more than $300,000 without a vote of the people, the state’s credit card will be taken away and budget writers will be forced to either raise taxes or cut spending to bridge the gap. Here is a wire story about the decision.

UCLA's respected Anderson Forecast project has scaled back its projections for California's economic recovery once again. Here is a story in the Bee.

Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte, the state’s highest-ranking Republican elected official and a longtime ally of President Bush, endorsed Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor today. Rep. Darrell Issa, the San Diego County congressman who bankrolled the signature gathering for the recall, might be next. In a telephone interview today, Issa distanced himself from his comments Monday in which he said he might urge voters to reject the recall if both McClintock and Schwarzenegger stay in until the end. Issa told me that he will endorse one of two candidates by Sunday at the latest, and those around say he doesn’t intend to back McClintock. His Monday comments, Issa said, were meant as a “wake-up call” to fellow Republicans. “I am trying to make the picture crystal clear. Very clear. It’s unacceptable to have two candidates splitting 50, 55 percent of the vote so that the people of California will choose a pro-business candidate and not get one.” An endorsement from Issa would send a very strong signal to Republicans that Schwarzenegger is their man. It would also, potentially, further polarize the race, as Issa was never a popular figure with voters, who didn’t seem to like his original goal of helping to put the recall on the ballot with his money and then running for the office himself.

The Bee's cartoonist, Rex Babin, joined me and the political press corps last weekend for a jaunt to San Diego for a Schwarzenegger event, then up to LA for the state Republican convention and Bill Clinton's appearance at the AME church. It wasn't exactly Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail, but Rex captured the scene well in a colorful sketchbook published Sunday. See it here.

Rick Hasen, who wanted to delay the election, posts his analysis of the 9th's decision here.

I think the 9th Circuit decision simply restarts the race, with eight days and who-knows-how-much voter focus having been taken away. Unlike a Supreme Court reversal, I don’t expect this decision to become an issue in the race, since it’s hard for Democrats to paint the liberal 9th as part of the right-wing conspiracy seeking to turn the state over to the Republicans.

All eyes now turn toward Wednesday’s debate, with the stakes higher than ever. Schwarzenegger must show that he is credible. He doesn't need to show he knows everything about state government, but he must show that he is sophisticated enough, savvy enough, to hold his own in the hardball world of the state Capitol. He has both raised and lowered expectations, raising them by describing this event as the “Super Bowl” of debates but lowering them by allowing himself to be painted as the guy who knows nothing about state government and is afraid to talk about it. Judging from the several free-wheeling press conferences I have seen him conduct with the political press corps, I think he is more than capable of shining in this debate. Bustamante, meanwhile, must shore up his Democratic base, which seems to be deserting him even as he has moved to the left. And he must persuade at least a few independents that he is more than just the candidate for the emerging Latino plurality and the Indian casinos. Look for him to appeal to the middle class with a call for increased spending on the public schools and a rollback of this year’s tuition increases in higher education. McClintock’s toughest moment will be in the Green Room, before the debate, when he must decide what tack he is going to take. If he really thinks he has a chance to win this thing, his only path to the top is through Arnold. Will he attack Schwarzenegger as an amateur dominated by the big-spending Wilson team, or will he focus on Bustamante, and on Davis, and try to shine by presenting his own passionate views about this crucial moment in California history? His answer to that question will affect not only his fortune but Schwarzenegger’s as well, and ultimately, perhaps, the recall election itself.

Here is the link to the decision.

Darrell Issa says he's going to advise a "no" vote on the recall if Schwarzenegger and McClintock are still exchanging blows on Election Day. The man who bankrolled the signature drive says he fears Republicans will split the vote and elect Cruz Bustamante the next governor. Here is the story in the Chronicle.

Voter interest in this election, measured by late registrations, is running somewhere between last year's governor's race and a typical presidential election. Here is a Mercury-News report on last-minute sign-ups in the Bay Area.

It looks as if the lawyers don't agree with my layman's prediction of an activist ruling reinstating the Oct. 7 election with conditions. Most of the takes I have read so far lean toward a simple ruling setting the election back on track with no bells and whistles. See Rick Hasen for his take and links to a few more. Hugh Hewitt doesn't say so explicitly here, but he did today when we chatted on the radio. How Appealing, meanwhile, blogs that the court will announce its decision in the morning, and he says he will post a wide range of legal reaction later today.

A few weeks ago I opined in this space that the members of the Legislature’s Latino Caucus, obsessed with ethnic identity, are pursuing policies that are damaging to the interests of their own people. We now turn to Exhibit A. Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, chairman of the caucus, has been at war all year with the state Board of Education over how much time immigrant children should be required to study English each day. The state board’s answer: at least as much as native-English speakers, or 2½ hours a day. But Firebaugh argues that devoting that much time to English/language arts studies won’t leave enough time in the day for kids in bilingual education programs to study their core subjects in their native tongue. Now Firebaugh has a bill on the governor’s desk that would force the school board to take his side.

At issue is whether California schools will be required to follow the state’s standards in order to participate in the federal Leave No Child Behind program and obtain funds distributed by the feds. The school board, following state laws, says local schools can offer bilingual programs when parents request it, but they’ve still got to teach English to those kids. Firebaugh says ignore the standards and give them the money. He takes this position despite recent test scores showing that young children in bilingual programs are reaching proficiency on the state’s English and Language Arts standards at a far slower rate than children in other programs. They are the very children who need English instruction the most. Stopping them from getting it, I would argue, is against their long-term interests.

Note: This bill, AB 1485, would also roll back an important part of the state’s standardized testing program and weaken California’s commitment to education accountability. The bill was amended in the waning days of the legislative session to eliminate, except for third graders and eighth graders, that portion of the tests that seeks to ensure that California’s standards, and its student performance, are not slipping below national norms. The other part of the test, which measures how well our kids do on our standards in grades two through 11, would remain in place. But the check against national norms is crucial. Even if our students are doing fine on our California-only standards, it’s still vital to know how well they compare nationally. That’s the best check we have against moves to dumb down our benchmarks or change performance standards to make our students’ performance appear better than it really is.

UPDATE: Here is the most recent Senate staff analysis of the bill. The bilingual issue discussed here is summarized in the second to last graph.

I think the recall case was decided in the first five minutes of oral arguments, when Judge Kozinski asked Tribe if the Berkeley study of punch cards researched what would happen to the “error rate” if the ballots were counted by hand rather than by machine. Prediction: the court will order that the election proceed on Oct. 7, accompanied by a massive voter education campaign about how to vote by punch card, and, possibly, a hand count of all the punch card ballots. Wouldn’t that be a great way for the liberals on the 9th to skewer the Supremes without postponing the election, by finding that Bush v. Gore, which stopped a hand count in Florida, actually requires one here? California, by the way, has statewide standards for manual counts, unlike Florida, which didn’t even seem to have consistent standards within counties. One final twist: the court might also give the plaintiffs their original demand by postponing the election on Proposition 54 until March. Be careful what you wish for.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has just ruled that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante cannot legally accept large contributions from the Indian casino tribes and use them to pay for television commercials showing him arguing against Proposition 54, the racial privacy initiative. The court ruled that the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission erred in advising state politicians that they could raise money in excess of the $21,200 limits if they had a political committee in place before the limits were approved by voters in November, 2000. The ruling seems to leave Bustamante with no choice but to return the millions in Indian casino contributions he has received, and the Indians no choice other than to launch independent campaigns on Bustamante’s behalf. Here is the full ruling.

UPDATE: The decision requires Cruz to give back only that portion of the money that he still has. Money already spent, which is probably most of what he has already received, won't be affected.

Two ways of covering Schwarzenegger’s press conference to unveil his environmental proposals. One style, in the Bee and the Mercury, describes the proposals, adds substantive reaction to them and mentions that there were protesters heckling Schwarzenegger about his Hummer and other issues. The other, in this case from the Chronicle, leads with the demonstration, saying the candidate was “dogged by persistent protesters and hecklers” as he tried to seize the environmental mantle. Both styles describe actual events and weave in material from elsewhere. So which is most accurate? Every reporter who covers campaigns knows that both major parties, but especially the Democrats, recruit volunteers and even use some paid staff to harass the opposition with signs and protests at their public events. It’s not as if these people suddenly materialized from the streets of Carpinteria and showed up on the beach to hound the leading Republican candidate. Should they be quoted? Yes, if they have something intelligent to say. Should their disruption be the story? I'd say no, unless that is the story, meaning a serious examination of the tactics used by one or both parties to keep the opposition candidates from communicating their message to the people of California. Otherwise it's like giving attention to a disruptive child, and encouraging tactics which may be amusing to us reporters but do nothing to further intelligent debate about the issues confronting California.

How Appealing is all over the 9th Circuit hearing with a pre-game show that shouldn't be missed. He also promises more blogging before, during and after the oral arguments, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.

The Bee's editorial board has begun a group blog, called Fly on the Wall, with the first order of business being discussion of the questions in advance of Wednesday's debate. Please visit early and often.

Last November, Bill Simon, who opposed abortion rights, gun control, and gay rights and favored limited school vouchers, got 10 percent of the Democratic vote and 38 percent of the independent vote, according to the LA Times exit poll on election day. Right now, according to the Public Policy Institute Poll released today, Arnold Schwarzenegger has the support of 11 percent of the Democrats and 21 percent of independents. Today Schwarzenegger reached out to the center with a comprehensive environmental plan that could have been written by Bobby Kennedy Jr. (Oh yeah, it was!) He wants to build "hydrogen highways" with hydrogen filling stations every 20 miles, promote solar power and crack down on polluters. He does mention some market-based ideas, including congestion pricing and financial incentives to get drivers to junk old, polluting cars. One side note: with this proposal, Schwarzenegger now has an economic plan, a political reform plan and an environmental plan. Who does he think he is, the policy candidate? To see the whole thing, download the PDF file here.

Eugene Volokh thinks Judge Pregerson's comments to the LA Times Saturday, in which he predicts that the three-judge panel's recall ruling will be overturned, are a violation of the judicial code of conduct. Link via LA Observed. And here is the original Times story. Registration required.

The San Jose Mercury News offers another story raising questions about Schwarzenegger's immigration record, this one looking at whether his brief stint in the bricklaying business in the early 1970s violated the terms of his visa.

If, in advance of Monday's hearing, you're looking for some deeper insight into the issues at stake in the 9th Circuit recall case and background on the judges on the panel, your best bet is How Appealing, a blog by Philadelphia-based appellate lawyer Howard Bashman.

You might also try Election Law blogger Rick Hasen, with the caveat that he is a participant in the case on the side of the original plaintiffs: he wants the election delayed.

And for real junkies, try the eleciton law list-serv here. But be warned this is not a blog. It is a thread of sometimes hard-to-read emails from election law experts.

The drive to recall Gray Davis leads 53-42 among likely voters while the race to replace the governor remains a toss-up between Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, with state Sen. Tom McClintock trailing in third place, according to a new poll to be released Sunday by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The poll of 2,001 adults, including 1,033 likely voters, was conducted between Sept. 9 and 17. Among its findings:

--Support for the recall has dropped since the institute’s last survey a month ago, when the recall led 58-36 among likely voters.

--Cruz Bustamante leads the replacement election with 28 percent, with Arnold Schwarzenegger at 26 percent. That difference is within the poll’s margin of error and reflects a dead heat. Tom McClintock was third with 14 percent. A full 18 percent of voters remain undecided going into the campaign’s final two weeks.

--Bustamante so far has the support of just 49 percent of Democrats, with 11 percent saying they will back Schwarzenegger and 6 percent supporting McClintock.

--Schwarzenegger leads McClintock 47-24 among Republicans, with 7 percent saying they intend to vote for Bustamante.

--Among independents, Bustamante leads with 24 percent while Schwarzenegger has 21 percent and McClintock 12.

--Unlike other polls, which showed the state’s Latino vote badly split, the PPIC survey shows 49 percent of Latinos backing Democrat Bustamante. Schwarzenegger gets 15 percent and McClintock 9. The PPIC poll has by far the largest sample of Latinos of the three independent polls in California.

--Just under half of voters, or 49 percent, say the recall against Davis is an appropriate use of the provision, while 45 percent say it is not.

Look for the full poll to be posted some time Sunday here.

A few days ago I asked for candidate ideas on balancing the budget. Randall Sprague is on the ballot, and has exactly one year's experience as a member of his homeowner's association board of directors. Here are his ideas on how to fix the state's fiscal mess. His most intriguing suggestion: let students work off some of their tuition by picking up the slack for laid off state workers. Mr. Sprague, meet the California State Employees Assn.!

Here’s a preview of the week ahead in the recall race:

Monday: All eyes will be on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco as an 11-judge panel that experts says is about as conservative as you can get from this court considers whether the election should continue as scheduled until Oct. 7 or be cancelled midstream and reset for a later date. The hearing begins at 1 p.m., with each side getting 30 minutes to argue its case.

Tuesday: Early betting is that a decision in the case could come as soon as Tuesday. If the election is left on Oct. 7, the campaign will resume in earnest as the plaintiffs in the case appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. No one thinks the high court would reverse such a ruling. If the 9th Circuit panel cancels the election, recall supporters will appeal to the Supremes, and what they might do then is a much tougher call.

Wednesday: The first and perhaps only debate in which Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to participate will begin at 6 p.m. at Sacramento State University. Other participants will be Tom McClintock, Arianna Huffington and Peter Camejo. Cruz Bustamante, the leading Democrat in the race, is still considering whether to participate. The debate promises to be a wide-open exchange, with opening questions pulled from among a dozen already made public, with each question followed by a no-holds-barred discussion among the candidates. Each of the participants will be able to rebut and question the others under the guidance of a moderator, with no pre-set time limits other than one-minute for the first answer to each question. See my earlier item here for a list of the questions.

This debate will be the most watched political event in California history, and the pressure will be on Schwarzenegger. If he can leave viewers feeling comfortable with him as a political figure and not just a celebrity, if he makes no major mistakes and demonstrates leadership qualities, he could get a major boost from the event heading down the stretch of the campaign. If he makes a blunder, looks foolish or out of his element, voters who have been on the fence might write him off and start thinking about their alternatives. Bustamante, meanwhile, has to show that he is more than a candidate of the casino Indian tribes and the state’s emerging Latino population. Look for him to appeal to the state’s middle class by bashing big business and promising to hold down and roll back college tuition while boosting funding for K-12 education. McClintock must convince Republicans that he can win if they abandon Schwarzenegger and he must show independents and Democrats why his conservative principles should appeal to them.

Thursday. The Republican Party’s county chairmen have scheduled a private meeting in Sacramento at which they will consider endorsing either Schwarzenegger or McClintock. Schwarzenegger has the edge here and, if he performs well at the debate, should win this unprecedented contest. This endorsement, if it comes, is the closest any candidate can come to getting the official stamp of the Republican Party. McClintock and his allies are already portraying the meeting as a potential “back-room deal” of party bosses aimed at railroading the rank and file into backing Schwarzenegger and forcing McClintock out of the race. It remains an open question whether winning this battle helps or hurts Schwarzenegger in the greater war. His aides are convinced that the way for him to win lies in sewing up the Republican vote, and they think he can do that by winning the visible backing of party leaders. But doing so amid criticism of the process from rank and file activists risks making him appear to be a typical politician and not the insurgent he started out to be. It also holds the danger of telling Democrats and independents, who lean left in this state, that this is a partisan race.

Governor Davis has taken the political ritual of burying controversial news on Friday afternoon to new heights, and now he seems to have extended the rule to cover even mildly risky moves, like yesterday’s signing of AB 205, the domestic partners legislation. The religious right hates this bill and has threatened to sue to block its enactment. Their beef: the voters said in 2000 that state-sanctioned marriage should be only between a man and a woman. But this bill doesn’t create gay marriage. It simply gives to domestic partners most of the same rights and responsibilities that married people have under state law. And polls have consistently shown that voters make this distinction. They want the institution of marriage restricted to heterosexual couples but want gay couples to be accorded the same rights and privileges they would have if they were married. If I were king I would get the government out of the marriage business entirely, privatize it and leave it up to couples to draft contracts that suited their needs. But there are certain issues like community property, child custody and child and spousal support obligations, mutual responsibility for debts and the right to make funeral arrangements, which have become the prevue of the state and will probably remain so. I see no problem in extending these rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples. Doing so carries no adverse effects for third parties, and in fact might be of benefit to those seeking to collect debts from domestic partners, and to the state if partners are required to pay child or spousal support that keeps their partners from needing state services. Here is the Bee’s story on the bill signing, and here is the latest legislative analysis of the measure.

What do the Indians want from Sacramento? The LA Times answers the question here, in a comprehensive story on the growth of the tribal casino lobby and its political agenda in the Capitol. Registration required.

The Bee has a story here on recent casino tribe compacts containing an important new concession to their neighbors.

The debate about the debate seems to be cooling down now that all of the potential participants have read the rules. McClintock agrees to participate after realizing that the format allows all the canididates to ask each other as many questions as they like, providing the possibility for what his campaign manager calls the "WWF" of debates. Bustamante is still checking. Here is the story in the Bee.

Recall sponsor Ted Costa’s lawyers have just filed a motion with the court asking to split the allotted 30 minutes of time with the attorney general, who is representing Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. The attorney general wants to keep the entire 30 minutes to himself. But Shelley, Costa argues in the motion, has confined his legal arguments to date in this case to process, arguing that the case is not properly before the court because the state’s settlement in a prior lawsuit allowed the use of punch card voting until March 2004. Shelley, the motion says, “has left it to Costa – a private citizen – to develop the entire factual record concerning competing voting technologies, to muster the constitutional arguments as to why the impeding election does not violate the Equal Protection Clause and to bring before the Court the manifold public policy concerns that auger against an injunction and for the People’s right to vote….In fairness to the public interests at stake, and for the sake of complete presentation of the case, the Court should allocate to Appellee Costa the bulk of Appellees’ collective argument time.”

How Appealing analyzes the 11-judge panel picked by lottery to review the three-judge panel's decision. His take: as conservative as it could get. Link via PrestoPundit.

The Pechanga/Sycuan Indians today reported spending $924,000 on mail and phone banks on behalf of Cruz Bustamante.

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians yesterday reported spending $471,000 on its first television buy for Tom McClintock.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said today that he believes the entire recall election will have to be restarted from the beginning if the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals does not reverse its three-judge panel’s ruling postponing the Oct. 7 election date. Shelley said that means candidate filing, which was such a zoo the first time around, would reopen, with a new filing deadline 59 days before the March 2 election, or any other election date set by the court. He also said he believes that ballots already cast, which now total more than 500,000, would have to be destroyed. But he wouldn’t say whether he intends to appeal to the Supreme Court if the 11-judge en banc panel does not vacate the earlier ruling. “Much of it depends on the timing,” he said, adding that voters and elections officials need a certain amount of time before the election to know for sure that the balloting will proceed.

The 9th Circuit has decided to review the three-judge panel's ruling postponing the Oct. 7 election. Here is a story on CNN.

Gray Davis in his first term famously said that he thought the Legislature's job was to implement his vision. People have been asking him ever since what his vision is. He was asked again Wednesday night at his "town hall" forum with a friendly audience in Sacramento. He fumbled the question terribly with some much-quoted remarks about people from "every planet" settling in California. Below I have transcribed the entire answer. While it got better, and there are glimpses of some thought about the nature of California, he still, after nearly 30 years in state government and five as governor, has great trouble succinctly stating his view of where California is today and where he'd like to take it. Here is the full quote:

"My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state, ah, we have the sons and daughters of people from every planet, of every country on earth, in this state. We are about 50 years ahead of the rest to America. We have no ethnic majority any more. I want to prove we cannot just survive, we can succeed. Let me tell you why. Most of the of folks that come here are the sons and daughters of middle class parents someplace else, they are enterprising, hard working, and they are able to attract capital from whatever country they came from into whatever business they’re doing. And that creates jobs for folks that are already here, gives them opportunity. And that’s why I want to make sure education is open everybody, that we have scholarships for kids who get a B-average in their school and if they have financial challenges then we’ll pay for all the academic costs of any public college they can get admitted to on their own merit. That wasn’t the law before I became governor. It’s the law now. It’s a tremendous motivator for young people. It is also a way in which a teacher can motivate a young child who doesn’t have two nickels to their name. Because it doesn’t matter, if they get a B-average. I am very excited about this state. It has great opportunities. They say California rides point on America. Some things we do we do really well. Some thing we do not do as well. But I want to prove we can succeed, big time."

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to open up California’s public records to public scrutiny would be a radical and long overdue transformation of the way state government does business. Veteran Capitol reporters know that the Public Records Act is misnamed. It should be the un-Public Records Act. It has so many exemptions that almost every important document in government hands is now secret. In particular, communications with the governor and drafts of proposals, as well as records of the governor’s schedule and with whom he is meeting, are all secret. Critics say government discussion would be “chilled” if bureaucrats and advisers knew their words would become public. I doubt it. Other states, particularly Florida, allow broad public access to government records and don’t seem to suffer from it. While some sensitive discussions would no doubt be re-routed, the state simply does too much business among too many people for everyone to be censoring or hiding their views all the time. Allowing public access to internal documents would give citizens a much better sense of how their government was being influenced, how decisions were being made, and on what information their servants were basing their actions. California reporters, and citizens who do this kind of work, know we are far more limited in our access to information than watchdogs in other states and even those who track the federal government. If a gnome in the Department of Finance warned Gray Davis that a fiscal train wreck was coming and he ignored it, we would never know, because current law keeps such correspondence secret. If someone advised Davis that the electricity industry was about to implode, we’d never know it, because all correspondence to the governor is exempt from the public records act. If the governor signs a bill at the bidding of a big donor despite credible evidence that the bill would harm the public interest, we would never know it, because advice to the governor on legislation from his departments is not public under the public records act. If a draft of an important report is altered later for political purposes, we’d probably never know about it, because it is very difficult to get drafts of reports from the executive branch. If Californians want to take back control of their government, they first need to know what their government is doing, and why. Re-writing the public records act to actually make records public would be a huge first step in that direction.

The next few days will be crucial to the campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger if the Oct. 7 election date is restored by the courts. His one major remaining Republican rival, Tom McClintock, is about to benefit from television commercials paid for by the wealthiest interest group in California – the Indian tribes who run gambling casinos. McClintock and all the other candidates, meanwhile, are combining forces to ridicule the actor for ducking all but one debate, and for choosing as his only debate one with a format in which the questions have been released in advance. His opponents either don’t know or don’t care that the format also allows for 90 minutes of free-flowing give and take among all the candidates, with all of them free to ask each other any question they like. The media have picked up on the everybody-ganging-up-on-Arnold theme, which is more fun to write about than the sort of serious political reform proposals the candidate offered Thursday in Sacramento. How Schwarzenegger responds to all of this may well decide the election, which remains a toss-up in independent polling. If he stays above the fray, laughs off the attacks and notes that his foes are being financed by the very interest groups he has threatened to sweep from the Capitol, it could solidify his campaign and win support in the days leading up to the election (if there is one). If, on the other hand, he attacks and snipes and whines about his opponents (as he did on Thursday), voters will likely see him as weak and partisan, not the kind of leader who can bring people together for the greater good of the state. It is truly extraordinary to see candidates from across the political spectrum, including a major Republican and major Democrat, working together to undermine one of their rivals. That seems, again, to play right into Schwarzenegger’s hands, reinforcing the “outsider” persona that his own campaign has so far failed to emphasize. But as Reagan so often showed, words, gestures and body language matter at times like this. One example: I remember how Reagan almost never used the word “Democrat” when criticizing his opponents. I always assumed that this was because he wanted every possible Democrat to vote for him, and he figured that blasting the party by name would make its members defensive and less likely to support him. So he always said things like “there are those who would undermine our security…” or “my opponents say…” Schwarzenegger has his moments as a communicator, but he hasn’t mastered that skill of using words that unite even as they define his differences with the opposition. With intense interest focused on his every move, his every word, he will need that skill in the next few days, and in the debate next week, if he is going to win this campaign.

Here is the Bee's story on Schwarzenegger's political reform proposals, the most comprehensive analysis of the package in any of today's papers.

Nearly 500,000 ballots have already been cast, putting California on a pace to equal or surpass turnout in a regular general election. But what was a geyser has slowed to a trickle since the 9th Circuit court ruling. Here is a story from the San Francisco Chronicle.

AP has moved a story saying Bustamante, McClintock, Camejo and Hufffington are drafting a letter in which they will threaten to boycot next week's debate unless the sponsors drop 12 questions submitted by the public and already released and use a traditional format instead. It's not clear from the story whether the letter will really come together. There seems to be some question whether all the candidates are really willing to threaten to drop out. Stan Statham, president of the California Broadcasters Assn, says the format will not change.

A couple of things:

1. Schwarzenegger has already said they he would be happy to debate next Wednesday whether the questions are released in advance, or not.

2. The candidates, and to some extent the press, don't seem to understand that this is designed as a free-wheeling debate. The questions will be openers. After the first response, all the candidates get to jump in with rebuttal, followups, comment or whatever they like. The four who are complaining can spend all 90 minutes peppering Arnold with questions if they like. This would seem to hold the potential to be superior to any of the previous debates.

Disclosure: The idea of releasing the questions in advance was mine, and it was intended to engage the public in a discussion of the issues in advance of the debate, increasing expectations for the candidates to answer in more than sound bites.

At his press conference today on political reform, Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked a question he had to have expected, about the casino Indian tribes bankrolling commercials for Tom McClintock. The question gave Arnold the perfect opening to talk directly to the voters about the very issue he was discussing while at the same time taking a swipe at his last remaining major Republican opponent. He could have used the moment to say how this showed that the Indians have become the biggest, baddest special interest in Sacramento, and that by helping McClintock and Bustamante both they were playing a cynical game and proving that he, Schwarzenegger, is the man the special interests fear most. Instead, he gave reporters, and by extension readers and television viewers, a political consultant’s answer questioning McClintock’s loyalty to the Republican Party. Maybe it’s just me. But every time I hear a candidate talk about party loyalty, I want to tune him or her out. I don’t really care, ok? I care about the state, its problems, its future. I do not care whether Arnold thinks McClintock is a good Republican or a bad Republican. That’s not what this election is about. Here’s the quote:

“On what side is he on? Is he on the side of the Republicans, does he represent the Republicans, or does he represent Bustamante. Because he is taking money from the same Indian tribes that are financing (Bustamante’s) commercials, his TV spots and all that. He knows they are financing him not because they want him to be governor. They just want to interfere with the process so Bustamante wins. He has to decide which side he is on.”

While the court battle and the debate over debates rages on, Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to burnish his policy credentials. His latest is a wide-ranging and detailed plan to clean up Sacramento with measures on open records, campaign fundraising, and redistricting. The plan would:

--Make access to public records a right of the people under the state constitution, covering both the legislative and executive branch and, like a model sunshine law in Florida, make public the appointments schedule of the governor and every other state official, drafts of state documents and internal e-mails.

--Ban political fundraising between the time the governor proposes a budget in January and signs one later in the year. Lately that’s been anytime between July and September. But Schwarzenegger aides said he also plans to overhaul the budget process in a way that would shorten the deliberation time-frame to between January and early May.

--Require immediate disclosure on the Internet of all campaign contributions and make willful violations of campaign finance laws a felony punishable by one year in prison.

--Take the job of drawing district lines out of the hands of the Legislature and give it to a three-person panel of retired judges chosen by lottery under the direction of the state Judicial Council.

Schwarzenegger also said he would not sign any bill that did not receive a full hearing by a policy committee in the Legislature prior to passage, a limitation aimed at ending the practice of “gut-and-amends” through which lawmakers strip bills of all their contents at the last minute and replace them with entirely new provisions that are passed without public scrutiny.

“There is no such thing,” Schwarzenegger said at a Sacramento press conference, “as democracy in the dark.”

If the past is any indication, most of these measures would have trouble getting through the state Legislature. But Schwarzengger has said before that he would be willing to go over the heads of lawmakers and take issues directly to the people on the ballot. Presumably he would be willing to do that with these proposals as well.

Arnold Schwarzenegger took some more well deserved hits last night from his four remaining major opponents, all of whom participated in an LA Press Club debate in Los Angeles while Arnold was across the street chatting with Larry King, live. By ducking these debates, Schwarzenegger has managed to make his lack of substance The Issue in the campaign, at least as it’s reported in the mainstream press and on television. By agreeing only to the debate in which the questions have been released to the public in advance, he has reinforced the notion that he is an amateur who can’t handle the pressure of speaking off-the-cuff about the important issues facing the state. In truth, Schwarzenegger has been more accessible than Bustamante of late, and more detailed than McClintock. He just hasn’t wanted to share th