Attorney General Bill Lockyer, considered a leading Democratic contender for
governor in 2006, stunned a political conference in Berkeley Saturday by announcing
that he voted for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the recall election.
Lockyer's statement came at a conference sponsored by the UC Berkeley Institute
of Governmental Studies, where academics and reporters examined the aftermath
of the recall election. At the conference, California Democrats, still reeling
from the stunning recall of Gov. Gray Davis, turned their fire on each other
in a flurry of accusations and finger-pointing.
But the most shocking comments came from Lockyer, who revealed that Schwarzenegger
"is the first Republican I ever voted for." He said felt he had to
back the GOP candidate because "I thought I was doing what made sense.''
Lockyer said he voted against the recall, but couldn't bring himself to back
Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
"You know people in your profession really well,'' he told reporters after
his lunchtime speech to a post-mortem seminar on the recall election. "You
know who works hard and who doesn't. You know who's honest and who isn't. And
that's all I'm going to say.''
Other Democrats had plenty to say, however. Lockyer, who has made no secret
of his interest in running for governor in 2006, angered party members last
summer when he referred to Davis' aggressive attacks on Republican Bill Simon
in 2002 as "puke politics,'' a charge Republicans echoed with delight during
the recall race.
'Sanctimonious posturing'
Lockyer's complaints are nothing more than "sanctimonious posturing'' that
didn't help keep Davis in office, said an angry Garry South, a top political
aide to the governor.
Lockyer, a state senator from Hayward before being elected attorney general
in 1998 and 2002, "has never had a real (competitive) campaign in his life,''
South said. "And he wants to give other people advice?''
Lockyer did get support from Republicans, who said the attorney general is only
recognizing California's new political reality.
"He's put himself on the side of the angels,'' said George Gorton, chief
political strategist for Schwarzenegger. "If there ever was a time to hold
hands and walk together out of the forest, it's now.''
'Principled leadership'
People voted for Schwarzenegger, Lockyer said, "because they wanted to
see principled leadership'' and that the former actor promised to be an optimistic
leader "who was upbeat and promised a better future.''
"I want to give him the benefit of the doubt,'' the attorney general added.
"I think he means well.''
Published reports of Schwarzenegger's alleged harassment of women over the years
don't bother Lockyer, although he said he had no doubts the reports were true.
"I'm convinced Arnold didn't really understand that he was caught up in
frat boy behavior,'' Lockyer said.
Lockyer and Bustamante weren't the only Democrats to catch fire from other party
members. South also blasted Sen. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and other
leading Democrats for backing Bustamante on the recall ballot, which he called
"an idiotic notion.''
'A lot of silliness'
"There was a lot of silliness out among our officeholders,'' he said. "It
was like 'pick a candidate, any candidate' and Democrats would flock to it.''
The lieutenant governor's "No on the recall, yes on Bustamante'' slogan
was a nonstarter from the beginning, South added, because Bustamante's real
interest was in becoming governor.
"Cruz thought this was a way of sneaking into the (governor's) job with
a fig leaf on,'' South said.
Bustamante and the other Democrats don't get all the blame for Davis' landslide
loss, said Larry Grisolano, another Davis aide.
'Chances were very bad'
"Our chances from the beginning were very bad,'' he admitted.
"At its head was a mathematical calculation,'' South added. "How do
you get 51 percent of the vote with a 21 percent approval rating?''
Political consultants who drove the historic recall election acknowledged that
just 10 days after Davis was re-elected in 2002, the first discussions began
regarding an effort to take out the Democratic incumbent.
"We were talking about the terrible election, and that people felt they
didn't have a choice,'' said Mark Abernathy, who helped organize Davisrecall.
com, the leading organization driving the effort. "We said, OK, this is
something that could be done."
Republicans said that the major force in the recall - and perhaps the single
most important factor in putting the matter before the voters in October - was
the $1.7 million invested by Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista.
Why Issa wrote the check
Issa wrote the check, said his consultant David Gilliard, because he wanted
to run for governor.
But Steve Smith, who represented Californians against the Costly Recall, the
anti-recall organization, said that - for months - the Davis camp discounted
the effort to recall the governor, because more than two dozen similar efforts
had failed in the past.
But with the help of talk radio and the Internet to gather signatures, Republicans
said this effort was different - and that Democratic failure to counter was
critical. "If Gray Davis had followed the advice to act like a governor
in January, to act like a governor in February, to act like a governor in March
- we never would have had a recall,'' said Sal Russo, the GOP strategist who
helped lead the recall charge.
Democratic attorney general says he opposed the recall of Davis, but
chose Schwarzenegger as his replacement because of his message of hope.
By Dan Morain, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, 19 October 2003
BERKELEY Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, one of the most partisan
Democrats in California, surprised political insiders on Saturday when he revealed
that he had broken party ranks in the recall election to vote for Gov.-elect
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In a speech at UC Berkeley, he said he opposed the recall of Gov. Gray Davis
and voted against it. But on the second part of the Oct. 7 ballot, which asked
voters to select a replacement for Davis, Lockyer said he chose Schwarzenegger
because he was won over by the Republican's message of "hope, change, reform
[and] optimism."
"I hope I'm not being conned," Lockyer said. "The people who
voted for him hope they are not being conned."
His remarks caused a stir among the audience of about 100 political scientists,
consultants and journalists who gathered at a forum analyzing the recall at
Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies.
"Wow," said Schwarzenegger campaign strategist George Gorton. "Smart
politicians are always ahead of the game."
Lockyer's vote while noteworthy because of his position and past was not uncommon
among Democrats. A Times exit poll found that 23% of registered Democrats voted
for Schwarzenegger.
Lockyer, 62, briefly considered running to replace Davis himself, but, like
most prominent Democrats, ultimately decided to stay out. He has known Schwarzenegger
for a dozen years, and supported the actor's 2002 ballot initiative that sought
funding for after-school programs.
The attorney general is widely thought to be a probable candidate for governor
in 2006. His most likely foe for the Democratic nomination, state Treasurer
Phil Angelides, has emerged as a Schwarzenegger critic who has promised to lead
Democratic opposition to the new governor. Both Lockyer and Angelides have stockpiled
roughly $10 million in campaign funds for the 2006 election.
Lockyer attended Saturday's event with his new wife, Nadia Maria Davis, and
infant son, Diego. Noting that having a child at his age has brightened his
perspective on life, he wore a tie that quoted from the John Lennon song "Imagine."
He cuddled the baby as he waited his turn to speak, seemingly unbothered by
a spot of drool dampening his white shirt.
Lockyer shrugged off suggestions that his vote for Schwarzenegger would damage
his standing among the Democratic faithful and undermine his support in the
2006 election, saying: "I'm just doing what I think is right. It is a new
me."
He opened his speech by quoting at length from Matthew Arnold's 1867 poem "Dover
Beach," which evokes a mood hovering between melancholy and hope. It was
a marked departure from the partisan rhetoric for which Lockyer is known.
In the mid-1990s, as Democratic leader of the state Senate, he oversaw the fund-raising
and operation of Democratic campaigns while keeping up a steady beat of criticism
of then-Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican. Lockyer won his current office in 1998
in a campaign that sharply disparaged his Republican rival's opposition to gun
control. He was easily reelected in 2002.
But even as Lockyer described his newfound moderation, he took a swipe at the
only major Democrat who had offered himself as a recall candidate, Lt. Gov.
Cruz Bustamante.
"You know the people in your profession really well," Lockyer said,
explaining why he couldn't bring himself to vote for Bustamante. "You know
who works hard and who doesn't and you know who is honest and who isn't. Cops
know that about cops. Doctors know that about doctors. I know that about politicians."
Democratic consultant Richie Ross, who advised Bustamante in the recall campaign
and Lockyer in past races, shrugged off the attorney general's remarks, saying,
"My candidates have differing points of views."
As the surprise of Lockyer's admission faded, many observers began parsing his
remarks for political motives. Perhaps he hoped to clearly differentiate himself
from Angelides, some said. Or maybe Lockyer was merely trying to align himself
with the broad swath of voters who backed Schwarzenegger, others speculated.
"Vintage Lockyer," Garry South, Davis' longtime political strategist,
said with a smirk.
Early in the recall campaign, Lockyer characterized Davis' past campaigns as
"puke politics." In his speech Saturday, he said the comment was aimed
at discouraging negative campaigning.
"Negative campaigns turn people off," he said. "It is disrespectful
to voters. It erodes the fundamental tenets of society."
Lockyer said he viewed the Schwarzenegger campaign, by contrast, as "hopeful
and optimistic and positive and problem-solving."
California Democratic Party executive Bob Mulholland said he doubted that Lockyer's
announcement would hurt him with Democrats. But Mulholland pledged that the
Democratic Party would continue criticizing Schwarzenegger over his policies
and allegations that he sexually harassed women on movie sets over the last
30 years.
Lockyer, for his part, said he has no doubt that Schwarzenegger engaged in "frat
boy" behavior, but added that "I'm convinced that Arnold didn't understand"
that such actions were wrong.
"I give him the benefit of the doubt," Lockyer said
By Dan Walters -- Sacramento Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, October 19, 2003
BERKELEY -- Dozens of political junkies -- campaign consultants,
pollsters, journalists, academicians and so forth -- gathered at the University
of California on Saturday for what they expected to be a lively and detailed
postmortem on the historic and often bizarre election that dumped Gray Davis
from the governorship and selected movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger as his successor.
Their expectations were more than met as operatives for the competing factions
on the recall and the major candidates to replace Davis -- plus a panel of lawyers,
reflecting the litigious nature of the event -- dissected the eight-month-long,
ever-twisting path to the Oct. 7 election.
But, as if to prove that this most unusual campaign still has surprises to offer,
what left attendees buzzing afterward was not what the campaign strategists
had to say, but Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer's startling declaration,
during a luncheon speech, that he had voted for Republican Schwarzenegger himself
after looking at the "crappy list" of alternatives, including Democratic
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
Lockyer, who has a personal friendship with Schwarzenegger dating back a dozen
years, said he opted for the actor -- the first Republican for whom he had ever
voted -- because he seemingly personified an upbeat, hopeful attitude. "I'm
tired of cynical, transactional politics," said Lockyer -- who has become
something of a crusader for positive political debate.
Later, Lockyer said that the late-blooming allegations that Schwarzenegger had harassed women during his acting career did not alter his decision, characterizing the allegations as undoubtedly true -- Schwarzenegger himself partially acknowledged that -- and "frat boy behavior." "I gave him the benefit of the doubt," Lockyer told reporters.
Lockyer's statements are especially jarring to political insiders because he has raised millions of dollars in campaign funds and made little secret of his ambition to run for governor himself in 2006. And that leaves cognoscenti wondering whether Lockyer is being sincere, albeit unconventional, by supporting the new governor or has some sly political motive.
It's not the first time that Lockyer had interjected himself into the recall. Although describing himself as a strong opponent of recalling Davis, Lockyer in early August issued a warning to the governor not to engage in "puke politics" -- a reference to Davis' often slashing political style. If Davis demonized others in the election, Lockyer said, he and some other prominent Democrats might bolt and endorse a Republican successor. The remarks angered pro-Davis forces -- and were echoed in Schwarzenegger's response to the groping allegations. On Saturday, Davis campaign adviser Garry South referred to Lockyer's "puke politics" remarks as "sanctimonious posturizing" that had been "not helpful" to the anti-recall campaign.
There's no particular reason to believe that Lockyer is not being sincere in his latest declaration. Although he's been a professional politician for three-plus decades, he's also something of a free spirit, given to occasional questioning of the win-at-any-cost mentality in the Capitol. He devoted most of Saturday's address to calling for an end to "the politics of destruction" that alienate voters and ignore real issues.
The sincerity of his motives notwithstanding, however, Lockyer's career could be affected by his public acknowledgment of his vote for Schwarzenegger. It could attract support from the substantial number of Democrats who voted to oust Davis and elect Schwarzenegger, for one thing, but could get him into trouble with more partisan Democrats, especially the women's groups that consider the governor-elect to be a chauvinist.
It's at least conceivable that Lockyer is setting Schwarzenegger up for a later rupture by expressing expectations, such as raising taxes to balance the budget, that the new governor cannot easily meet. At one point, Lockyer said he hopes he's not being "conned" by Schwarzenegger's expressions of sincerity.
Saturday's session gave the political junkies an enormous fix of insider material -- but nothing as jolting as Lockyer's symbolic break with his own party as Schwarzenegger prepares to take office.
"I hope I'm not being conned," he added. "I think the voters hope they're not being conned."
The attorney general's comments pleased Schwarzenegger's advisers but prompted others attending the daylong conference to accuse Lockyer of electioneering. The longtime politician is exploring a bid for governor in 2006 and is a political rival of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the leading Democrat on the recall replacement ballot. Lockyer criticized Bustamante early on for jumping into the replacement contest, saying it would hurt Davis' chances at keeping his job.
Finally, at a time when the California electorate is demonstrably anti-incumbent, Lockyer may stand to benefit by casting himself as a leader willing to cross party lines to embrace change.
While consistent in his opposition to the recall, Lockyer had taken a swipe at Davis weeks before election day, warning that if the governor ran a campaign of "puke politics" he would consider supporting one of his challengers.
"That sanctimonious posturizing is all well and good, but it was not helpful" to keeping Davis in office, snapped the outgoing governor's strategist, Garry South, during his own remarks Saturday.
Lockyer said he has known Schwarzenegger for a dozen years. Last year, Lockyer served as a co-chairman of Proposition 49, Schwarzenegger's ballot measure to encourage funding of after-school programs.
Speaking with reporters after his scheduled remarks, Lockyer said he has no doubts that as a bodybuilder and actor Schwarzenegger groped women over the years, as was alleged in the final days of the campaign. At the same time, Lockyer made clear that didn't dissuade him from supporting the candidate.
"I'm convinced Arnold really didn't understand that he was caught up in this frat boy behavior," he said. "And it was accepted too frequently in that industry. It was part of the culture. And I think he really, genuinely means to not do that. So I give him the benefit of the doubt. But I think it's real."
Lockyer offered this response when asked why he didn't vote for Bustamante: "You know the people in your profession really well. You know who works hard and who doesn't, and you know who is honest and who isn't."
Bustamante did not attend the conference, but his strategist Richie Ross did, as did advisers to Davis, Schwarzenegger and three other candidates, the Green Party's Peter Camejo and Republicans Tom McClintock and Bill Simon, as well as lawyers and consultants involved in various aspects of the election.
While Lockyer's remarks stole the show, the other panelists offered a wide-ranging recap of the factors leading to the historic recall -- the first time in state history a governor has been removed midterm -- and Schwarzenegger's decisive victory on a ballot with 135 candidates.
Although the recall campaign was formally launched in February, Ted Costa, the anti-tax activist who launched the campaign, actually was batting the idea around as early as last November, less than two weeks after Davis won re-election, according to Mark Abernathy, a GOP consultant and friend of Costa's who helped him map out an early strategy. What triggered the recall talk were early indications that the state budget crisis was worse than Davis had let on during the election, Abernathy said.
In late November or early December, after studying recall procedures in the state constitution and election law, Abernathy told The Bee, he and Costa contacted George Gorton, a consultant hoping to advise Schwarzenegger in a 2006 run for governor. Abernathy said they suggested to Gorton at that early date that a recall campaign "was an opportunity made to order for Schwarzenegger."
Gorton said Saturday he couldn't recall the conversation one way or another but that he didn't approach Schwarzenegger about running until after the campaign was formally launched.
Also on Saturday, the other campaigns conceded everyone had been waiting for someone else to go on the attack against Schwarzenegger once he entered the race in August. Davis' team thought the tabloids would air dirty laundry about his past. McClintock's team thought Davis' team would go after him. Bustamante's team, like the others, worried that a negative campaign could backfire against the side that launched it and inadvertently help someone else, in a race with so many candidates.
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger's advisers saw a unique opportunity afforded by the short election timetable, the crowded field and the public's anger at the political establishment.
"It wasn't about eight-point plans," said his media consultant, Don Sipple. "It was about symbolism, messages and messengers. He was the embodiment of the American dream. He sets goals and achieves them."
That became clear on Saturday when one of the state's top Democrats, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, told a conference here that he not only understood why so many Californians had voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor-elect, but also that he had voted for Mr. Schwarzenegger.
Mr. Lockyer, a liberal Democrat who had served 25 years in the State Legislature and had helped lead George S. McGovern's presidential campaign in 1972 in California, said it was the first time he had voted for a Republican in a partisan election.
"I am tired of transactional, cynical, deal-making politics," Mr. Lockyer said. "I want to see principled leadership. And yes, he may be naïve about that. But you know what? It is real."
Mr. Lockyer later said he had been drawn to Mr. Schwarzenegger by the candidate's can-do attitude.
"It is just hopeful and optimistic and positive and problem solving," he said. "I don't know any other way to describe it. People vote more for the person than the philosophy. It was just voting for the person that made sense."
Mr. Lockyer, 62, is not just any Democrat breaking ranks with the party: until the recall election, on Oct. 7, he had openly set his sights on the governor's office in 2006, when the four-year term of the outgoing Democratic governor, Gray Davis, was to end. The secretary of state's office said Mr. Lockyer's "Lockyer 2006" committee had more than $10 million as of June.
Asked after he spoke what effect his vote for Mr. Schwarzenegger might have on his standing in the Democratic Party and his own ambitions, Mr. Lockyer replied: "I don't know. I don't care. I am just doing what is right. It's a new me."
The announcement surprised the audience of about 200 academics, campaign consultants and journalists gathered at the University of California for a daylong discussion about the recall and its aftermath.
Mr. Lockyer, the lunchtime speaker, talked of his recent marriage and the birth of a son, Diego, two events that he said had changed his outlook on life.
Mr. Lockyer said he became convinced shortly after the election that he had made the right decision in backing Mr. Schwarzenegger when he met with the governor elect and disclosed how he had voted.
"He said, `Bill, you listen to my heart, not my party,' " Mr. Lockyer recalled. "Now how can you not love somebody that feels that way about it? I hope I am not being conned. I think the voters hope they are not being conned, because we really want and deserve people who genuinely want to see that little Diego should live safely and should go to good schools and have health care if he needs it."
Asked later what he meant about being conned, Mr. Lockyer referred to Mr. Schwarzenegger's self-promotion as a bodybuilder and actor.
"Those that have looked at the old stories know that there was a time in Arnold's life when he would try to psych out competitors and play mind games with them and so on," Mr. Lockyer said. "I don't think that is what he is doing. But there is that possibility. I hope a slim one."
On the subject of accusations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Lockyer said that he had no doubt that the basic accusations against Mr. Schwarzenegger were true, but that Mr. Schwarzenegger had learned from his mistakes and should be given a second chance.
That was a stark contrast to Mr. Lockyer's remarks several days before the election, when, campaigning with Governor Davis, he called for an official investigation of the accusations.
"I'm convinced Arnold really didn't understand that he was caught up in this frat-boy behavior, and it was accepted too frequently in that industry," Mr. Lockyer said on Saturday. "So it is part of the culture. And I think he really genuinely means to not do that. So I give him the benefit of the doubt."
Mr. Lockyer was a critic of the recall from the beginning, standing at Mr. Davis's side until the end. Mr. Lockyer said on Saturday that he remained an opponent of the recall, having voted no on the question of whether Mr. Davis should be removed from office. He described the recall mechanism as destructive and said it would be "very unwise" for Democrats to deploy it against Mr. Schwarzenegger, as some have speculated might happen.
Mr. Lockyer said he had intended to follow the advice of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who encouraged her fellow Democrats to vote no on the recall and also not select a replacement candidate. But Mr. Lockyer said he had changed his mind on Election Day. He said he was not enthusiastic about any of the other 134 candidates.
He said he would have voted for Mr. Davis had the governor's name been allowed on the replacement list.
As for Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante, the only Democratic officeholder to run for Mr. Davis's job and also a possible rival to Mr. Lockyer in 2006, Mr. Lockyer suggested he had "made it harder" for Mr. Davis to beat the recall.
Original URLCalifornia
Insider -- A Weblog by Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel
Weintraub
Posted by dweintraub at 06:19 PM October 19, 2003
Gov.-elect Schwarzenegger is scheduled to return to the limelight this week
with his first visit to the Capitol since the election, including a series of
meetings with legislative leaders Wednesday and a sit-down with recalled Gov.
Gray Davis on Thursday. Schwarzenegger has kept a fairly low profile since Oct.
7. After two press conferences in two days to bask in the victory and introduce
his transition team, he jetted off to his Sun Valley, Idaho vacation home, where
the ski slope named "Arnold's Run" suddenly has taken on a whole new
meaning. There he relaxed for the weekend with his family, recharging his batteries
after the draining, 62-day campaign while keeping in touch by phone with his
transition staff back in California. Last week’s only public appearance was
his meeting with President Bush in Riverside and the new governor’s introduction
of the prez in San Bernardino, followed by a short solo press conference to
talk up “mutual trust” and state/federal relations.
In private, meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has been meeting to shape his governing team with a close circle of advisers, the most important of whom are his wife, Maria, and longtime friends Paul Wachter and Bonnie Reiss. Wachter, who is Schwarzenegger’s personal financial adviser, has known him since 1981, when they met through Maria’s brother Bobby. Wachter began managing the actor’s financial portfolio in the mid-1990s and served as his spokesman on personal financial issues during the campaign. But his influence now extends beyond money. Reiss, a former entertainment industry lawyer and environmental activist, also came to Schwarzenegger more than 20 years ago through her friendship with Maria. She later emerged as the key person in the growth of Schwarzenegger’s favorite charity, the Inner-City Games, for which she has served as CEO and as a member of the board of directors.
Maria Shriver, Bonnie Reiss and Paul Wachter are Schwarzenegger’s anchors, the people who were with him before politics and will be with him after. When they speak, he knows they have his interests at heart. Outside that very close personal circle, the most influential adviser is surely Bob White, the longtime alter ego of former Gov. Pete Wilson and a political mentor to Schwarzenegger since the early 1990s. Rep. David Dreier, the head of the transition committee and a key campaign adviser, serves as something of a balance to White’s Wilsonian instincts, with Republican Senate leader Jim Brulte, a recent addition to the team, an increasingly important part of the mix. Campaign message men Mike Murphy and Don Sipple, neither of whom will enter the government, remain on good terms with Schwarzenegger and will keep him apprised of how he’s doing politically.
While the 65-member transition committee was thrown together hastily and had the unmistakable mark of the Wilson team that helped run the campaign, Schwarzenegger made at least one interesting mid-course adjustment, personally calling Fresno Mayor Alan Autry and asking him to “Join Arnold” after criticism that the list was heavy on Sacramento insiders and light on Central Valley representation. But the transition committee, as everyone knows, is mostly symbolic anyway, with its only real function being to funnel potential appointees the governor's way and, in this case, assess the condition of the various state agencies that the governor-elect will soon direct. Schwarzenegger's real focus the past 12 days has been on the first and perhaps most important decision he will make as governor: naming his chief of staff.
The position is crucial in any government, because the chief-of-staff sets the tone for everything that happens inside the administration. He or she generally serves as the gatekeeper, deciding who sees the governor and who does not. The chief also oversees hiring of the lesser positions on the governor’s personal staff and screens those whose selection requires the governor’s involvement. And this is the person who will help Schwarzenegger decide how much of his ambitious agenda he can tackle, and when.
The governor-elect will want someone who is loyal and long known to him, knows the Capitol and California politics, can manage a huge operation with good people skills and is not afraid to take chances and be bold in implementing Schwarzenegger’s vision. But there is probably no single person who meets all those needs. So he is going to have to choose between someone he knows and trusts implicitly and someone who knows their way around the Capitol but is not as personally familiar with Schwarzenegger's inner thinking.
Some around Schwarzenegger have thought that Reiss would make an inspired choice. Probably no one other than Maria knows Schwarzenegger's professional side as well as Reiss does. Like White did for Wilson, she probably knows Arnold well enough to guess, accurately, what he would do on countless decisions too small to bring to his attention. But her lack of government experience or a big-time management background would make her a risky choice. As would her recent appointment as a director of a major Las Vegas casino company -- a sore point with the Indian gaming tribes with which Schwarzenegger tangled during the campaign. And it's not even known if she would want the job.
An early candidate from outside the inner circle, recommended by White, was Russell Gould, a former finance director and health and welfare secretary for Wilson who since the mid-1990s has been a director with the Los Angeles-based investment firm MetWest, where he has been heavily involved in managing the assets of the Getty Trust. But Gould, friends say, is reluctant to leave his high-paying post and relatively sedate lifestyle for a return to the intense, 24-7 environment of Capitol politics.
Another top candidate, lately emerging as the favorite, is Patricia Clarey, a make-the-trains-run-on-time White deputy during the Wilson years who filled the same job on the Schwarzenegger campaign, which she joined after taking a leave of absence from her post as government relations VP at the health insurer HealthNet. Clarey would be a safe choice: smart, qualified, experienced, a known quantity. She worked for Reagan and the first Bush in Washington before moving west to join the Wilson team. Her selection would raise few eyebrows, other than for the Wilson connection, and perhaps her long ago role as a Chevron Corp. lobbyist. Which is probably just the way she’d like it. Clarey's relative anonymity is something that no doubt makes her an attractive candidate for the job.
But -- and this has to be the caveat in every Schwarzenegger item -- the world learned on Aug. 6 that Arnold loves head-fakes. So I wouldn’t be shocked if he switched gears at the last minute and went with some kind of eye-popping, out-of-the-box selection that caused everybody to stop and say “Wow!” He did name Willie Brown to his transition team, after all.
Democrat chose Schwarzenegger
By John Marelius
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 19, 2003
BERKELEY – Attorney General Bill Lockyer, one of California's most venerable and partisan Democratic politicians, stunned a political conference yesterday by saying he voted for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the recent recall election.
Lockyer said he strongly opposed the recall of Gov. Gray Davis but voted for Schwarzenegger as an optimistic antidote to what he regards as a depressingly negative political culture.
"I voted for Arnold. First time I've ever voted for a Republican in my life for a partisan office," he said. "I looked at the list (of candidates). It was a crappy list. He represented for me what he did for others – hope, change, reform, opportunity, upbeat, problem-solving. I want that."
Lockyer was the keynote speaker at a post-recall conference sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California Berkeley.
The conference, which has been held after each of the past five gubernatorial elections, demonstrated how Schwarzenegger's stunning victory has transformed California politics in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 recall election.
Past conferences often have amounted to acrimonious finger-pointing sessions among GOP campaign strategists while their Democratic counterparts smugly savored their victories.
Yesterday, Republicans – even those from rival campaigns – congratulated each other on a job well done while Democrats re-fought internecine recall battles, particularly Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's decision to enter the race after party leaders had tried to pressure prominent Democratic elected officials to stay out.
A shouting match erupted at the close of the daylong conference over late-breaking accusations that Schwarzenegger had groped or made unwanted advances toward 16 women.
Bob Mulholland, the in-your-face strategist for the California Democratic Party, demanded to know when Schwarzenegger would make good on his promise to get to the bottom of the allegations after the election.
"When 16 women independently pick Schwarzenegger out of a lineup for sexual abuse and the campaign even today, it's all politics, this strategy, those tactics!" Mulholland shouted from the audience. "If somebody did that to my wife, I'd want to kill the bastard. Will we ever get an answer from your candidate?"
Sean Walsh, communications director for the Schwarzenegger campaign, said the campaign had sought out people who could corroborate the candidate's side of the story before the election, but that "there's no investigation."
"So Arnold didn't tell the truth before the election when he said after the campaign he'd look into these charges?" asked Garry South, Davis' senior political adviser.
"You lost!" Schwarzenegger strategist George Gorton shouted back. "It's over!"
Lockyer, meanwhile, told an impromptu news conference that he believes the charges against Schwarzenegger to be true but of little consequence.
"It's true. It's absolutely true," the attorney general said. "People can decide whether it matters to them or not.
"I'm convinced Arnold didn't really understand that he was caught up in this frat-boy behavior and that it was accepted too frequently in that industry. It was part of the culture."
Lockyer's unlikely embrace of Schwarzenegger comes after spending much of the past year raising money to run for governor in 2006.
Asked how his supportive comments about the Republican governor-elect affect his own political future, Lockyer replied: "I don't know. I don't care. I'm just doing what I think's right. It's a new me."
Indeed, earlier in his 30-year political career, Lockyer earned a reputation for his explosive temper and sharp political elbows.
At 61, newly remarried and with a new baby, Lockyer said he has mellowed. Last summer, Lockyer denounced Davis as a practitioner of "puke politics" and warned that he and other Democrats might defect to an acceptable Republican if Davis repeated the relentlessly negative campaign he waged against Republican Bill Simon in 2002.
"Negative campaigns turn people off, and it's disrespectful to voters," Lockyer said yesterday. "It erodes the fundamental tenets of a democratic society, and we just have to get people to start talking about real issues that matter to real people."
The "puke politics" remark still rankles the Davis camp. South accused Lockyer of "sanctimonious posturing" and noted that when Lockyer was state Senate president pro tem, he oversaw Democratic campaigns that were anything but genteel.
"With all due respect to the attorney general of California, go back and look at the Senate races that were run when he was president pro tem," South said. "I would say you would be pretty hard pressed to say these campaigns were any more lofty or high-purpose than any other campaign in California history."
The Davis adviser also denounced Bustamante for running and giving Democratic voters unhappy with Davis a partisan fallback. But South admitted he is not sure the governor would have survived the recall even if Bustamante had stayed out.
South contended that the "No on recall, yes on Bustamante" slogan was a "ludicrous mixed message" and a transparent "fig leaf" to conceal the lieutenant governor's real motive for running.
"I've likened the 'No on recall, yes on Bustamante' mantra to the cigarette companies saying to teenagers, 'You shouldn't smoke; it's bad for you, plus it's illegal. But what the hell, if you decide to, here, smoke our brand,' " South said.
Bustamante campaign manager Richie Ross argued that if Davis lost the recall, Democrats would have been second-guessed anyway.
"If Cruz or someone else had not filed, today's discussion would have been about 'What part of the situation wasn't obvious to you, the Democrats, and why did you guys just sit back and let this happen?' " Ross said.
Lockyer made it clear that he regarded Bustamante as an unacceptable alternative to Davis, but not because he considered him a probable rival for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2006.
He said that when he decided to vote for Schwarzenegger, it was already clear Bustamante couldn't win.
"You know the people in your profession really well, and you know who
works hard and who doesn't, and you know who's honest and who isn't," Lockyer
told reporters. "Cops know that about cops. Doctors know that about doctors.
I know that about politicians."
BERKELEY - State Attorney General Bill Lockyer was not about to be left out Saturday at a conference billed as a candid dissection of California's frenzied, historic recall election.
In his keynote address to about 200 political consultants, scholars and journalists gathered at UC Berkeley, the lifelong Democrat revealed that he voted for Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.
None of the other replacement candidates, including Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat in the race, displayed the "problem-solving" approach and "principled politics" that persuaded him to vote for the Republican actor-turned-politician, Lockyer said.
"It was just voting for the person that made sense," Lockyer said, noting that he remained strongly opposed to the recall. "I hope I'm not being conned. I think the voters hope they're not being conned."
Lockyer said he decided to vote for Schwarzenegger the day he cast his ballot, and that it was the first time he had voted for a Republican in a statewide partisan race.
Lockyer co-chaired Schwarzenegger's successful drive in 2002 to persuade Californians to vote for Proposition 49, an initiative that will increase funding for after-school programs when the state's budget improves. He said it remains to be seen if Schwarzenegger can untangle the "spaghetti mess" that is California government.
"Can Arnold do that? Probably not," Lockyer said. "Can anybody do it? Probably not."
Lockyer called Schwarzenegger's plan to balance the budget without raising taxes or slashing social programs an "Easter bunny theory." But, he added, "I want to give him the benefit of the doubt."
University of Southern California political scientist Sherry Bebitch Jeffe said Lockyer, a possible contender for governor in 2006, seemed to be distancing himself from his party.
"I think part of that is to let people know he's not a partisan Democrat," she said.
Lockyer's admission was among many revealing comments in the daylong conference, sponsored by the university's Institute of Governmental Studies and the Center on Politics. Other participants also pulled aside the curtain -- though not all the way -- on the recall's backstage drama.
For instance, a political consultant to the pro-recall group funded by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said it was Issa's ambition to become governor that prompted the Southern California car alarm magnate to pump more than $1.7 million into the drive to gather enough petition signatures to put the recall on the ballot as soon as possible.
"There's no question about that," said consultant David Gilliard.
Gilliard and strategists for other pro-recall groups said voter discontent with Davis was so widespread that the recall would have qualified sooner or later. But the GOP congressman's money enabled them to hasten the effort and ensure a vote this fall instead of next year, they said.
If it was clear to Davis opponents early in the year that the recall vote was a sure thing, it wasn't until the second or third week of June that the governor and his allies conceded to themselves that it would occur, said Steve Smith, who ran the governor's anti-recall effort.
By that point, labor unions allied with Davis were "very nervous" and beginning to mount a defense of the governor on their own, said Carroll Wills, a firefighters union official who represented another anti-recall group.
"The decision to start the campaign (against the recall) was really, genuinely driven from the outside," Wills said.
Davis advisers disagreed about whether trying to block the recall from qualifying could succeed or would be a waste of resources, said Garry South, a political consultant to the governor. Vulnerable to charges that he puts campaigning over managing the state, Davis also was reluctant to begin raising funds, South said.
"He simply did not want to get back into full-blown campaign mode," South said.
Had Davis recognized the threat sooner and immediately begun campaigning to keep his job, the governor would have stood a better chance of surviving on Election Day, said political consultant Sal Russo, who advised one pro-recall group.
"I think the biggest advantage we had in defeating Gray Davis was that they didn't take it seriously," Russo said.
Potential GOP replacement candidates -- and not just Issa -- took the recall seriously from the beginning, candidate representatives and GOP consultants said. Schwarzenegger's advisers closely monitored the recall petition drive, for instance, even as their candidate kept them and everyone else guessing about whether he would run.
Schwarzenegger campaign consultant George Gorton said he thought, until just before Schwarzenegger's stunning "Tonight Show" announcement, that his candidate would skip the race in deference to former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, another Republican.
"He went out and shocked me," Gorton said.
By ALEX EIRANOVA
Contributing Writer, Daily Californian
Monday, October 20, 2003
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer shocked a crowd of journalists and
academics at a UC Berkeley conference Saturday when he announced he broke party
lines and voted for Republican Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Arnold represented for me what he did for others—hope, change, reform, opportunity,
upbeat problem solving,” said Lockyer, who is rumored to be running as one of
the Democratic gubernatorial candidates in the 2006 election.
Lockyer said he hoped Schwarzenegger would not “con” the voters.
Gasps greeted Lockyer’s announcement in what shaped up to be a day of post-recall spin and analysis.
The event, sponsored by the UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and the Center on Politics, featured election strategists from all political camps who sought to construct a historical record of the campaign’s tumultuous events.
Gov. Gray Davis’ strategist Gary South at times dominated the gubernatorial campaign panel as he dished out frank criticism, often directed at Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante’s campaign.
South referred to Bustamante’s campaign as “disingenuous” and blamed it for muddling the Democratic Party’s overall position of rejecting the recall.
South likened Bustamante’s campaign to cigarette companies—telling voters to vote no on the recall but to still vote for the lieutenant governor is like telling teenagers smoking is unhealthy but selling products to them anyway.
Strategists from the Schwarzenegger camp received praise from the gubernatorial election panel for running a strong campaign, but faced tough questioning from the audience.
Democratic Party spokesperson Bob Mulholland pointed to the allegation that Schwarzenegger inappropriately groped 16 women. He added that if anyone had abused his wife in such a way, he would “kill the bastard.”
This prompted a back-and-forth between the panel and Mulholland. One Republican strategist eventually shouted “You lost, it’s over.”
Reporters from the Los Angeles Times—the newspaper that reported Schwarzenegger’s alleged sexual misconduct just days before the election—defended their paper’s coverage of the governor-elect.
At one point a moderator, Times political reporter Mark Barabak, broke from his moderating duties and defended his paper.
Another Times reporter directly questioned the Schwarzenegger campaign’s assertion that the newspaper had given them short notice of the impending story.
In his keynote address, Lockyer reiterated his desire to see an end to “puke politics,” which he said turns people away from the political process.
Lockyer said he warned Davis people would desert him if he continued to rely on negative advertising in his campaigns.
He said he wanted a government that could live within its means and provide a dollar of service for a dollar of tax.
But UC Berkeley professor Henry Brady said he was concerned about the voters’ perception that there is an easy solution to the problems facing the state.
“In some sense it’s like there is this pot of gold Sacramento, but there isn’t,”
Brady said. “One of the concerns I have is that changing governors won’t fix
this problem.”
By Kathleen
Maclay, Media Relations
UC Berkeley News,
20 October 2003
BERKELEY – After political strategists, pollsters and journalists assembled at the University of California, Berkeley, on Saturday to analyze the California gubernatorial recall, professors from across the state met to map out their own strategies for dissecting the election and discerning lessons to be learned from it.
The Institute for Governmental Studies (IGS) at UC Berkeley sponsored the all-day election post-mortem, and is bringing together 39 professors of political science, public policy, economics, law and journalism to study and try to solve many of the puzzles of the historic recall.
"This represents the third project in which the IGS has taken on Multi-campus Research Unit-like responsibilities, initiating and funding cross-campus research endeavors on important California subjects," said Bruce Cain, IGS director and professor of political science. Previous projects explored constitutional revision in California and the blanket primary.
Participants in the recall research come from UC Berkeley and five other UC campuses, as well as Stanford University, Hastings College of Law, the University of Southern California, Claremont McKenna College, California State University Fullerton and Sonoma State, as well as the Public Policy Institute of California.
Research topics discussed Saturday included:
“I think it’s important for the political scientists to help us understand the contemporary media and its impact on electioneering,” she said. “And the most important contribution academia can make to this is to devise a sound methodology for tracking Internet use, talk radio and local broadcast media – which is where modern campaigns are played.”
The researchers will gather again in spring 2004 to update one another on their progress. The California Legislature also is scheduled to hold hearings next year about laws relating to recall, and one Assembly member – state Rep. Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles – has asked the professors' group to advise him on his effort to reform the recall process.
“The recall is clearly an event that had enormous consequences for the state of California,” said Shaun Bowler, a professor of political science at UC Riverside who led the research discussions. He credited IGS for taking the lead in organizing UC systemwide to look at the important issue.
The American Political Science Association journal “PS” will publish a symposium
of papers on the recall by several of the professors involved in the research
project. An edited book containing the research also is a possibility, Bowler
said.
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