'Survivor' Meets Sitcom in Calif.
New Plots, Characters Emerge in Recall Election
washingtonpost.com
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 6, 2003; Page A01
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 5 -- Every day, it gets stranger.
Yes, California's historic recall election holds momentous consequences for the nation's most populous state, for presidential politics over the next year, possibly even for American democracy.
That's the serious part.
But the Oct. 7 vote on whether Gov. Gray Davis (D) should be thrown out of office less than a year after he was reelected also is fast becoming a blockbuster farce.
Consider the advertisement that began running in the Los Angeles Times today: "Want to be governor? If you are 99 years old, 99 Cents Only Stores will gladly pay your $3,499 filing fee and gather the signatures needed for our chosen candidate."
Or the campaign slogan that Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt announced here Monday when he declared his candidacy for governor: "Vote for the smut peddler with a heart."
Or the lawsuit that Davis filed this week to be included on the ballot among candidates vying to replace him if he is recalled -- a request that, if granted, would make him the rare political candidate to be running against himself.
Confused? So is everyone out here.
So far, more than 200 Californians have picked up filing papers for a candidacy in the recall. Elections officials statewide are trembling as they await Saturday's deadline to enter the race. The ballot, they fear, may be a mosh pit.
But would that be so wrong? "Out of 35 million people, you may have hundreds who feel compelled enough to go out and run," said Ted Costa, a Republican activist who began the recall movement against Davis earlier this year. "That just doesn't happen in a normal election. It's indicative of the fervor out there."
Goofs, gadflies, dreamers and even a few actual politicians are scrambling to organize campaigns, but film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator turned Hamlet, has been wavering for weeks and now appears to be out. He is expected to announce his intentions Wednesday -- not at a news conference, but on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Schwarzenegger gave $50,000 on Monday to the group leading the recall against Davis.
Meanwhile, political pundit Arianna Huffington said she is getting into the race in response to liberal activists who created a Web site -- www.RunAriannaRun.com -- last month begging her to become a candidate.
"I think it's an historic opportunity," she said in an interview today. "There is a real chance here for a populist movement."
Huffington will announce her plans here Wednesday. Her ex-husband, former GOP House member Michael Huffington, also may run.
Amid the growing tumult, Davis is campaigning fiercely, and at times comically, to save his political life.
A few weeks ago, he vowed to fight the recall like "a Bengal tiger," but did not evoke that image again after it was widely noted that the species is endangered.
The governor also hugged a television reporter shortly after San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown told reporters that Davis is a cold and distant political figure.
With polls suggesting that a majority of voters are inclined at this point to dump him, Davis is struggling to keep his own party from putting an alternative candidate on the recall ballot later this week. But today, he received two potentially significant political boosts. National labor leaders urged Democrats to stay off the ballot, and all nine candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination signed a joint letter opposing the recall, which they called a "costly Republican power grab."
State officials now say the special election will cost more than $60 million, double their original estimate. There is no limit to the number of candidates who can appear on the ballot. All it takes to qualify is 65 voter signatures and a $3,500 filing fee. And all it takes to win, if voters decide to recall Davis, is the most votes -- not a majority.
Political strategists say that if Davis is ousted, his successor could emerge from a huge field of candidates with less than 15 percent of the vote.
"We have stricter requirements to get on 'American Idol' than we do for governor," Leno quipped recently.
The recall appears to be captivating California's notoriously distracted voters like no other political event. Strategists in both parties say there are signs that voter turnout this fall could be enormous.
John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, who are hosts of a popular talk radio show in Los Angeles, said callers are deluging them for hours every afternoon with comments and questions about the recall.
"This is a big earthquake on the way," Kobylt said, "and I think the people in power in the state are just realizing that."
The looming election also is producing a multitude of political stunts and hijinks. In Silicon Valley, a former software engineer is trying to entice 1,000 people to enter the race this week in the hope that such a flood of candidates would overload the ballot and stop the election.
"Help extend the absurdity of this recall election to its logical extreme," L. Stuart Vance says on the Web site he created for the campaign.
Meanwhile, Daryl Erson, the advertising director of 99 Cents Only Stores, said that about 40 people have responded to the newspaper ad his company began running today beckoning 99-year-olds to enter the race.
"This whole governor's election has become a kind of a mockery, but we're serious about this," he said. "We're going to find our candidate, someone who is at least 99 years old, is a registered voter and has the ability to attend a press conference."
Flynt, the porn mogul who has used a wheelchair since a white supremacist shot him in 1978, said he expects to spend millions of dollars on his gubernatorial campaign. He said he wants to solve California's budget crisis by expanding gambling and legalizing drugs. He is running as a Democrat.
"I might be paralyzed from the waist down," he told reporters Monday, "but unlike Gray Davis, I'm not paralyzed from the neck up."
Staff writer Sharon Waxman and special correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this report.
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