Isolation, Caution Cost Davis Dearly

SACRAMENTO —  Gov. Gray Davis dined with billionaires, met with prime ministers and was courted by would-be presidents. He was, briefly, a contender on the national stage.

But now, at 60, when he might have been in the prime of his political life, Davis will leave office much as he arrived, a political machine of one.

After single-mindedly spending his adulthood striving to be governor, Davis today is relegated to ignominy, the first California chief executive ever recalled.

He ends nearly 30 years in appointed and elected office without having forged more than a few close allies.

In an occupation filled with ambitious men and women, Davis was among the most driven of his day. He was a sharp-elbowed campaigner who nevertheless rarely had a hair out of place. Repeatedly underestimated and counted out, he drove himself ever harder.

Davis made sure he was in sync with the vast majority of California voters on the issues of the moment. He supported abortion rights, capital punishment and gun control; he decried offshore oil drilling. His stated priority -- improving public schools -- reflected voters’ chief desire. He was Robo-Governor, knowing the mechanics of government but failing to give people a sense that he cared passionately about any issue.

His downward spiral began during the energy crisis of late 2000 and 2001, when blackouts hit. Then the budget deficit reached tens of billions, prompting him to triple the vehicle license fee this year.

Davis’ predecessors survived far worse without being recalled. Gov. Pete Wilson faced a drought, an earthquake, a riot and the loss of 750,000 jobs in the worst recession since the Great Depression. And Wilson, like George Deukmejian before him, resorted to tax increases.

But unlike others, Davis isolated himself from those who sent him to Sacramento. “I did not keep in touch with the voters,” he said recently. Only after staring into the recall abyss did he alter his routine and find time for town hall meetings with voters.

He may have been, as one newspaper called him, the best-prepared governor ever elected in California. Certainly no incoming chief executive knew more about state government. But Davis rarely pushed policy initiatives; he waited while the Legislature set the agenda. Now he must vacate the corner office he so coveted, denied the privilege of building a legacy.

He has been “the 24-7 governor,” said Joe Cerrell, for 50 years an advisor to Democrats, Davis among them. “He eats, lives and sleeps it.”

“The social life,” Cerrell said, “is connected to the job of governor and to the campaign for governor -- the fund-raising. He is more political than any governor I have seen.”

Davis is a good golfer, but often that, too, was work. A spot in his foursome might cost a $25,000 contribution. He did not attend dinner fund-raisers to eat. He would circulate, spending 20 minutes at each table chatting about public education.

“The fun, the enjoyment, the good meal -- all that is secondary,” Cerrell said.

Trusty Tactic Fails

Davis was not a schmoozer. He didn’t glad-hand with people who couldn’t help him. As a campaigner, Davis conveyed the message that he might not be the next Roosevelt, but he wasn’t as bad as the other guy. In the recall fray, that didn’t work. He couldn’t be the lesser of two evils; he was running against himself.

Many officials combine ambition with their interests -- gun control, helping the poor, cutting taxes, expanding environmental protections. “What are his interests? That’s the question,” said Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, governor from 1974 to 1982. “He is drawn to the power. He likes the exercise of that power.”

Brown was often derided for his New Age interests and his “less is more” ethic. But his chief of staff -- Davis -- also lived a near-ascetic existence.

Later, as governor, Davis made morning phone calls to political aides while sweating on his home treadmill. Most days, his meals were turkey sandwiches, steamed broccoli and bottled water -- domestic, noncarbonated, room temperature. People complained that his name reflected his personality.

“My job is not to win a popularity contest,” he said last year.

Davis rarely made a campaign stop without recalling his service in Vietnam. Many of his campaign ads featured a photo of a young Davis in his captain’s uniform. But he long ago lost contact with Army buddies.

Born in the Bronx but raised in Brentwood, he was a product of private schools, Stanford University and Columbia Law School. At the end of his first year as governor, he spoke at his Stanford class’ 35th reunion. There were no recollections of his days on “the Farm.” He gave a sort of stump speech, then was whisked off.

“I remember thinking that this guy could very easily have been a robot,” said Rick Seifert, a Democrat who lives in Oregon and attended the reunion. Seifert saw the occasion as a lost opportunity to reconnect “with an audience that had all kinds of reason to feel good about him.”

Davis subordinated personal relationships to political advantage. Rose Elizabeth Bird, then chief justice of California, officiated at Davis’ 1983 marriage to Sharon. Once Bird was ousted by voters in 1986 for her opposition to the death penalty, Davis distanced himself from her. He was an adamant supporter of capital punishment and a hard-liner on criminal justice issues. Bird died in 1999. Davis skipped her memorial service.

In a Democratic state with a Legislature controlled by Democrats, these should have been halcyon days for the Democratic governor. But he squabbled with the most influential lawmaker, Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco), and alienated Democrats in other statewide posts, including Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who sought to replace him.

Davis didn’t build personal relationships, unlike many effective politicians who set aside differences and find common ground by talking about family or movies or baseball. “I never felt like I got to know him,” said Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, the GOP’s lead negotiator on most bipartisan deals during Davis’ tenure.

Brulte has fought with Burton, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and former Assembly Speaker (now San Francisco Mayor) Willie Brown -- all three passionately partisan.

“While we disagree,” Brulte said, “if they were in need, I’d try to be there for them -- and I believe that if I were in need, they’d be there for me. You never got that sense with Gray. I always felt a little sorry for him.”

On the Path

Joseph Graham Davis liked to say he waited 23 years to walk roughly 25 feet from the office of the governor’s chief of staff to the governor’s chair.

He started on that path in 1973, raising money to help elect Tom Bradley as Los Angeles mayor. The next year, Davis made his first run for office, a failed bid for state treasurer against fellow Democrat Jesse Unruh, the longtime Assembly speaker who had famously described money as the mother’s milk of politics.

As he ran an underfunded campaign, Davis denounced Unruh’s prodigious fund-raising, likening Unruh to a prostitute. In fact, fund-raising was becoming Davis’ stock in trade. After Davis lost the 1974 primary, Jerry Brown, then running for governor, tapped Davis to help him raise money, then appointed him his chief of staff. Davis was 32.

His first electoral victory came in 1982, when he won an Assembly seat in the Westside district that encompasses Beverly Hills, one of the nation’s richest veins of Democratic money.

While he raised cash outside public view, Davis launched the highly visible drive to place pictures of missing children on milk cartons and grocery bags. It was a no-lose idea that brought him national attention.

All the while, he was refining his skill at the ultimate insiders’ game. He crashed other legislators’ fund-raisers, where he would pass out business cards. He would also visit the Hillcrest Country Club near Beverly Hills, generally during the middle of the day so he could work the room at lunch hour.

Davis had built a $1-million war chest by 1986. He captured the office of state controller, then won reelection in 1990. He honed his reputation for ruthlessness in his losing 1992 run for U.S. Senate. Trailing in the polls, he aired a TV spot comparing his rival, Dianne Feinstein, to Leona Helmsley, the hotelier who was in the news for her tax-evasion conviction.

Davis redoubled his efforts, becoming lieutenant governor in 1994. The job’s few duties allowed him plenty of time to raise money for the 1998 gubernatorial campaign. The few million he raised paled compared with what his primary opponents, multimillionaires Al Checchi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), had. A newspaper columnist pronounced Davis “road kill.”

But reports of his demise were premature. Checchi and Harman spent $55 million between them, attacked one another and stumbled. Davis offered voters a steady hand. “Experience money can’t buy” was his slogan. In the general election, Davis promised Californians moderation, competence and an end to divisive politics such as the anti-illegal-immigration Proposition 187 and Proposition 209, the measure that banned affirmative action in government employment and in college admissions. He won in a landslide.

“We are going to be a responsible, restrained government serving all of the people, whether they voted for me or not,” he said after his victory.

Flush With Surpluses

In Davis’ first two years as governor, dot-com stocks were high and unemployment dropped to a 30-year low. Sacramento was flush with multibillion-dollar budget surpluses. There was enough money to slash the “car tax” and raise spending on schools, highways and health care.

Davis would be mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, his centrist politics -- though not his personality -- likened to those of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former President Clinton.

His good fortune continued in 2000, when he played host to the nation’s Democrats at their national convention in Los Angeles. While Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman took center stage, Davis clearly was positioning himself to be a contender.

“Unlimited,” former President Carter said of Davis’ prospects.

“He has a potential for national office,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Back in Sacramento, however, relations were souring.

Early in his tenure, Davis offended legislators with his statement that their job was to “implement my vision.” But he lacked an overarching theme and took an incremental approach to the office. Davis himself likened his governing style to a game of golf -- one shot at a time.

For the most part, he didn’t initiate policy discussions. Rather, legislators sent him bills that helped define his years in office: more aid to low-income college students, first-in-the-nation limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, binding arbitration for farm workers.

Davis touted many such bills as achievements: tougher gun control, broader rights for gay couples, continued protection of abortion rights, improved relations with Mexico, rising public school test scores. His administration paid for health care for hundreds of thousands of children of parents whose employers don’t provide benefits.

Few of these actions came without a fight. He signed the farm workers’ bill only after Dolores Huerta, the 73-year-old co-founder of the United Farm Workers and a hero to many liberals, threatened a hunger strike.

“No Democrat has done more for the core constituency than Gray Davis -- but they don’t like him,” said former Davis aide Phil Trounstine. “They don’t like him because they feel they got it in spite of Gray Davis, not because of him.”

On a personal level, he offended Democrats and Republicans by overlooking common courtesies -- showing up late for meetings, not returning phone calls.

When problems emerged, first in the form of the energy crisis and the budget shortfalls, few lawmakers were there to help.

Last summer, with the recall question on the ballot, Democrats in the Legislature embraced Bustamante’s replacement candidacy, though some doubted the lieutenant governor’s abilities.

“There was never a relationship,” said state Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland). “The best evidence of how bad things had gotten was that [we were] willing to throw Gray Davis over for Cruz Bustamante.”

Wealthy Patrons

Davis sometimes recalled that his father, a Republican, would tell him that if he couldn’t be rich, he should live next to a rich person. He might get invited to dinner now and again. In a sense, Davis has done that.

He relied on wealthy patrons, corporations and unions to fund his campaigns.

For all the money he raised -- $35 million in his 1998 gubernatorial campaign, $70 million in his first term, $15 million in the recall fight -- he lives in a 1,000-square-foot condominium in West Hollywood.

But as governor, he had access to California’s wealthiest circles. He dined at the home of media mogul Haim Saban. He watched videos with billionaire investor Ron Burkle.

Davis could be charming, especially at fund-raisers away from the Capitol crowd. Malibu investor William Chadwick held fund-raisers at his home for Davis.

“He talks to everyone one on one, stares you right in the eye,” Chadwick said in a 2001 interview. “He’ll talk a little about what he’s working on. My friends ask him about education, public safety, the Coastal Commission.... He is pretty relaxed.... He is not politicking. He really listens.”

In the recall campaign, it became apparent that some of those relationships had ceased. As he fought for his political life, some longtime donors were absent. The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which represents prison officers, spent $2.3 million to help Davis win election in 1998, and gave him $1.4 million more directly and indirectly during his first term.

Heading into the 2002 election year, Davis agreed to a contract boosting guards’ pay 35% over the five-year term of the contract. But after donating hundreds of thousands to Davis in the 2002 campaign, the prison workers gave the crippled governor nothing in the recall campaign except an endorsement.

Union official Lance Corcoran said the group did not want to add to “pay-to-play allegations” that Davis had traded favors for donations, an issue that dogged Davis for much of his term.

Still an Enigma

Few know Davis better than Garry South, his chief political strategist for the last decade. South can predict what Davis will say and do. But he often does not know why Davis acts; he still finds him enigmatic.

Davis has said he became a Democrat in Vietnam, where he saw that most soldiers fighting were poor, and most were African American or Latino. But after all these years, South said, he doesn’t “know honestly why [Davis] went into politics.’

“He doesn’t enjoy the hurly-burly of politics,” the strategist said. “He enjoys the governing side. He has taught himself to be a good mechanical politician. But he doesn’t do it with a lot of gusto.”

The first time South and his wife had a social dinner with the Davises was in January 2003. And South hasn’t been in Davis’ condo since June 1998.

“He is all business,” South said. “Unfortunately, politics is not all business. Politics has a human element about it. Many times people who disagree with you will help you because they like you personally. If you divest the whole process of the human element, it is going to cause you trouble.”