'TAINT NECESSARILY SO

Governor looks to taint recall as a costly ploy by the right (Laura Kurtzman, Jul. 26, 2003, San Jose Mercury News)

Gov. Gray Davis is so unpopular that his advisers don't plan to persuade voters to like him. And he may face so many rivals in the Oct. 7 recall election that he won't be able to win the way he's always won before, by attacking his opponent.

So, to save his job, the governor, his wife, campaign staff and supporters have begun to march in rhetorical lock step, trying to taint the recall as a vast right-wing conspiracy -- in Hillary Clinton's famous phrase -- to take over the state. Davis advisers say Bill Clinton may even come to California soon to make the argument himself. [...]

Instead of defending the governor, his longtime pollster Paul Maslin said, the Davis team will try to shift the blame by putting the heat on Republicans, including Bush in the weeks ahead, accusing them of trying to orchestrate a "right-wing coup.''

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, the president was too popular to touch, Maslin said. But with doubts swirling about Bush's reasons for taking the nation to war, it will be easier to pin blame on the president and his friends in the energy business for California's energy crisis -- and whip up fears of a Republican takeover.

"He ain't riding high anymore,'' Maslin said, noting that Bush's approval rating slipped to 49 percent in California, the lowest point since Sept. 11. "His policies are getting more unpopular every day.''

Great strategy if the economy slides into recession and there's another terrorist attack or Iraq turns into Vietnam. But if September is a good month economically and we produce the bodies of Saddam and or Osama and Iraq quiets down a little, then what exactly is the Governor running against?

MORE:
-Long, strange ride toward recall election (Dion Nissenbaum, Jul. 26, 2003, Mercury News) Posted by Orrin Judd at July 27, 2003 7:50 AM