GOP Council Backs Actor

Arnold Schwarzenegger picked up endorsements Monday from the California Republican Party leadership and a group representing corporate taxpayers, swelling a sense of confidence in his campaign and unsettling his rivals in the race to recall and replace Gov. Gray Davis.

The endorsements particularly stung state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who complained that Schwarzenegger was taking advantage of backroom politics. The actor’s apparent surge in recent days also set off alarms in liberal circles, with independent candidate Arianna Huffington meeting with supporters to decide whether she should drop out and throw her support to Davis.

As the campaign narrowed to something resembling a traditional two-candidate race, Davis’ camp accused Schwarzenegger’s campaign of resorting to dirty tricks.

Schwarzenegger and Davis spent the day on the stump, honing their attacks on each other and appealing for votes from their core constituencies. Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who is the only prominent Democrat running as a replacement candidate, had a light campaign schedule.

With the campaign down to its final week, the airwaves were thick with TV commercials by the candidates and outside interests.

Davis’ anti-recall committee ran a new ad listing accomplishments on his watch, and another criticizing Schwarzenegger for failing to vote in a number of elections. A new Schwarzenegger ad attacked Indian casinos, while one for Bustamante opposed cuts in funding for community colleges. A McClintock commercial emphasized his opposition to the car tax and Sacramento’s spending.

Schwarzenegger has been building a head of steam since a debate Wednesday that apparently gave him a boost in the polls. Adding to that were the two endorsements Monday, from the executive board of the state Republican Party and the California Taxpayers Assn. Both were departures for the groups, reflecting the unprecedented nature of the election.

The action by 17 members of the GOP’s state board came two weeks after party leaders declined to choose between Schwarzenegger and McClintock at their statewide convention in Los Angeles.

“We cannot afford three more years of pay-to-play government,” state GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim told reporters at party headquarters in Burbank. “We cannot afford three more years of out of control spending. In short, we cannot afford three more years of the Davis-Bustamante regime.”

Sundheim and the other Republicans did not call on McClintock to drop his bid for governor. But the party chairman did urge Republicans to consider their decision carefully because “we don’t want them to waste their vote.”

Sundheim previously had said that he and the party were like parents who could not choose between two children. Asked what had changed, Sundheim said the party’s grass-roots interests had insisted on an endorsement that could help the GOP retake the governor’s office. Late last week, 42 of 56 GOP county leaders voted in favor of endorsing Schwarzenegger.

“This is a two-person race and Arnold Schwarzenegger is the candidate we should unify behind on Oct. 7 or risk a Bustamante governorship that could potentially be even worse than a Davis governorship,” said Alameda County GOP Chairman Jim Hartman.

Bustamante has been jockeying with Schwarzenegger for the lead position in statewide polls.

Larry McCarthy, president of the California Taxpayers Assn., cited arguments similar to the GOP’s in explaining why the organization had decided to endorse Schwarzenegger. It was the first time in its 77-year history that the association of big businesses had endorsed a candidate, McCarthy said. It has taken no position on the recall itself.

McCarthy said the association had acted out of concern over Bustamante’s proposal for $8 billion in tax increases to balance the state budget. Schwarzenegger has not entirely ruled out tax increases, but has railed against them as a solution.

Asked why the group had chosen Schwarzenegger over McClintock, who has pledged that he would not raise taxes under any circumstances, McCarthy said: “I think it was simply a matter of their perception that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the most viable candidate with the greatest potential of winning.”

McClintock reacted angrily to both endorsements. He said the California Taxpayers Assn. is part of the spending lobby that has resulted in a huge budget deficit. “These are those corporations that trade off of government favors,” he said.

As for the GOP endorsement, McClintock said: “That’s not the Republican Party. That’s 21 people in the Republican Party.... I don’t think Republican voters are going to accept that.”

Insisting he was in the race to stay, McClintock offered to debate any of the other candidates, particularly Davis.

In recent days, Davis has challenged Schwarzenegger to a debate, but the actor has not accepted. The governor continued to shadowbox with Schwarzenegger on Monday, chiding him for his failure to accept the debate challenge.

“I don’t know what Mr. Schwarzenegger is afraid of,” Davis said at a news conference in Santa Monica.

The governor contrasted himself with the former bodybuilding champion. “I never participated in the Mr. Universe contest,” Davis said. “I’m ready to go toe-to-toe. He seems to be the one on the run here.”

Casting the closing days of the recall campaign as a two-person contest between himself and Schwarzenegger, Davis said a debate would expose what he described as Schwarzenegger’s repeated distortions of his record and misstatements about the state’s economy and health-care system.

He cited a claim by Schwarzenegger during last week’s debate that two-thirds of eligible children are not covered by the state’s Healthy Families program, which provides health-care coverage for poor families. Davis said 691,000 children are enrolled -- more than 60% of all those eligible.

“I’m tired of Mr. Schwarzenegger putting this state down in order to build himself up,” Davis said. “No state in America has enrolled more children than we have in the last five years.”

In fact, the growth of the Healthy Families program has been one of the largest elements in the increase in state spending under Davis.

Davis appeared at the news conference with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the latest in a string of prominent Democratic officials and presidential candidates to campaign against the recall. The two governors stood outside the Venice Family Clinic, the backdrop for an event designed to underscore Davis’ commitment to the Healthy Families program.

Richardson said the national Democratic Party was committed to the recall’s defeat.

“This is not just a California issue,” he said. “It’s a national effort by Republicans to try and change electoral mandates.”

Bustamante, whose campaign has sometimes flown under the radar of press coverage, announced no events Monday but turned up at a community forum in South Los Angeles, where he expressed confidence that he would win the election, despite polls showing him losing ground.

“I feel pretty good about my chances,” the lieutenant governor said. His aides said he had appeared at several other campaign events, but did not specify what they were.

Schwarzenegger campaigned in the Republican-rich San Joaquin Valley, beginning his day at a fund-raiser in Bakersfield and continuing on to an “Ask Arnold” session in Clovis, outside Fresno.

The fund-raiser, which was closed to the press, was attended largely by local development, real estate and agricultural interests. Larry Starrh, an alfalfa and almond farmer, said he was particularly impressed with Schwarzenegger’s desire to spend more on infrastructure.

“We’re not developing enough water sources, and he gave me the impression he would do that,” Starrh said.

Davis campaign officials, meanwhile, accused Schwarzenegger’s campaign of being behind an apparent attempt to slip Republican loyalists into the taping of a Davis town hall meeting with the Spanish-language Univision television network.

The Davis campaign based the allegations on an e-mail attributed to David Froemke, Los Angeles-based administrative vice president of the California Young Republicans.

The e-mail, headed “Spanish Speaking Republicans needed for Davis Town Hall,” urged recipients to RSVP for the event.

Davis campaign communications director Peter Ragone denounced the e-mail, saying: “This is what we’re up against in the final days of this campaign: dirty Nixonian tricks from the Schwarzenegger campaign and his band of Republicans.”

Froemke couldn’t be reached for a response.

Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman Sean Walsh said he would have to check to see whether the campaign was playing any role in getting Republicans to go to the meeting.

“Our response is, it sounds like the wheels are flying off the car of the Davis campaign,” Walsh said. Davis had held nine town hall-style meetings around the state before the Monday evening event at Univision studios in Los Angeles. Media organizations have picked the audiences, some of which have peppered Davis with tough questions.

“We are happy to have Republicans at the town halls,” said Davis campaign manager Larry Grisolano. He drew a distinction between ordinary Republican voters and campaign operatives seeking to embarrass Davis. Questions at Monday night’s meeting were, if anything, less pointed than Davis has faced elsewhere.

Davis campaign officials insisted that their anti-recall campaign is going better than polls have suggested, and particularly denounced the results of a CNN-USA Today poll released Sunday that showed the recall with strong support.

Still, there were signs of nervousness among some Schwarzenegger opponents Monday.

California labor leaders acknowledged that the election is close and that their efforts to save Davis’ job are challenging.

“It’s still an uphill battle,” said Art Pulaski, head of the California Federation of Labor, which is coordinating the efforts of 1,200 local unions hoping to reach 530,000 union members directly in the coming days.

In another sign of the shifting dynamics, Huffington, the left-leaning independent candidate, hinted that she was thinking of throwing her support against the recall, possibly endorsing no replacement candidate.

A member of Huffington’s campaign team said the candidate had met with her advisors late into Monday night without deciding whether to abandon her campaign and shift her position to a “no” vote on the recall.

*

Times staff writers Megan Garvey, Gregg Jones, Peter Nicholas, James Rainey, Kurt Streeter and special correspondent Marcelo Rodriguez contributed to this report.