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California Insider
A Weblog by
Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub
September 20, 2003
The week ahead
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.
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