SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — No candidate may have benefited from the punchy recall debate staged Wednesday night, except the man who was not invited: California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, analysts on both sides agreed.
In the aftermath of the nationally televised session, which was peppered with enough snippy digs and canned zingers that the frazzled moderator reminded viewers “this is not Comedy Central,” Californians awoke Thursday morning to a batch of headlines describing how the embattled Davis had signed bills advancing stem cell research, gun safety and environmental protections.
Davis and his strategists, who see new signs of life in polls and who are working desperately to showcase the governor as the humble, chastised but dogged leader above the fray, said Thursday that they were delighted by the debate.
“If anybody gained last night, it was Gray Davis,” said Leon Panetta, a former California congressman and Clinton administration official.
“The consultants and pollsters give them these one-liners and it may capture a bit on the news but the overall impression is that there is not much substance here. It leaves a bad taste in the people’s mouth.”
The stakes were high for this, the first and only debate that actor and Republican front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger will likely attend.
The personally combative tone of the debate is a sign of things to come over the next 12 fast and furious days.
For the first time, candidates have unleashed radio and television ads attacking each other. Strategists say the negative onslaught carries risks for the replacement candidates.
The last thing that California’s exasperated voters appear to be looking for in the historic Oct. 7 recall is more partisan squabbling.
The most recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found a new low in the electorate’s trust that Sacramento politicians will do the right thing.
“For Davis to pull a rabbit out of the hat and beat the recall, he needs voters to see an increasingly negative, shrill tone among his would-be successors,” said GOP consultant Arnold Steinberg.
“That’s what we saw at the debate. Anything that contributes to the circus atmosphere of the recall helps Davis.”
But Davis faces an exceedingly difficult task, to persaude enough independents and Democrats, who really are tired of him, that he deserves one last chance. The most recent polls still show a majority of voters about 53 percent ready to give Davis the heave-ho.
Schwarznegger Thursday received the endorsement of Bill Simon Jr., the businessman who ran and lost against Davis last year and entered and then dropped out of the recall race.
Simon praised Schwarznegger’s economic proposals and called him the only Republican who can win.
The endorsement from Simon, a conservative favorite, may help sway voters from state Sen. Tom McClintock’s camp.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who spent $1.7 million of his personal fortune on gathering signatures for the recall petition, is planning to endorse Schwarznegger on Friday.
Schwarzenegger also got support Thursday after an unusual vote by GOP county chairs, who voted 40-9 with 5 abstaining, to back the Hollywood actor.
McClintock, whom many GOP leaders fear could cost the party the governorship if he splits the Republican vote, adamantly repeated that he would not give up.
“When I entered this race, I made a promise to stay in right to the finish line,” he told reporters after the debate. “I keep my promises.”
None of the candidates broke new ground Wednesday night; they mostly stuck to the same scripts that they have been using for weeks. And they were frequently engulfed during the 90-minute forum in shouting matches.
Columnist Tom Goodman of the San Francsico Chronicle called it, “amateur night at the Elks Club.” David Jensen, author of the recall weblog the Condor, wrote, “Gray won. Nobody emerged as a leader from the pack of five.”
Dan Weintraub, columnist for the Sacramento Bee, opined, “I don’t think anyone won this debate.”
Schwarzenegger and columnist Arianna Huffington, a political independent, seemed at times like a bickering couple headed toward divorce court, baiting and finishing each other’s sentences.
After Schwarzenegger cut in on Huffington, she shot back: “Let me finish! Let me finish! Let me finish! You know, this is completely impolite and we know this is how you treat women and we know that, but not right now.”
Schwarzenegger replied, “I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in ‘Terminator 4,”’ a line widely seen as insinuating that the feisty Greek immigrant would either be a good victim or a good android.
Huffington, in an interview Thursday, said that she assumed Schwarzenegger meant that he would like to hold her head in a toilet bowl, as he did to a female killer-bot in his last action flick. Huffington said, “women are outraged. We got 3,000 e-mails on this today. I thought it really hurt him with women, which was already his vulnerability.”
Schwarzenegger Thursday explained what he meant — that Huffington would play the role of a powerful female.
“It was a compliment,” he said. “If she takes it the wrong way, it’s not my fault.”
