Five months before voters go the polls, Gov. Gray Davis effectively launched the fall election campaign Wednesday by airing a pair of television spots touting his record on abortion, the environment, crime and gun control.
The 30-second ads, which never mention Republican rival Bill Simon Jr., are the first advertisements either candidate has run since the March 5 primary and underscored the incumbent's tremendous financial advantage in the governor's race. Democrat Davis has more than $30 million in his campaign bank account, several times the amount Simon has managed to raise since his surprise victory in March.
The spots began running in Los Angeles, Sacramento and the Central Valley and will air for roughly the next four weeks at a cost of several million dollars. There were no indications that Simon planned to match Davis' advertising anytime soon.
The GOP candidate was in the Central Valley on Wednesday, kicking off the first in a series of planned issue forums with an agriculture summit in Lodi.
Sitting in front of a faux red-barn backdrop at a civic center auditorium, Simon reiterated his support for construction of dams and reservoirs to help the state's vital agriculture industry. He told the invitation-only gathering of 60 people--only about half a dozen of them farmers--that if he is elected governor the "era of neglect, of indifference" will end for California agriculture.
Davis was making his case on the TV airwaves. In the first of his spots, airing primarily in the Los Angeles and Sacramento areas, the governor speaks directly to the camera and boasts of signing "the toughest gun safety laws in the nation," protecting the state's coastline, air and water, and creating a state department to "help
The ad highlighted contentious issues such as abortion, guns and the environment that have bedeviled many statewide Republican candidates. "I've signed new laws protecting a woman's right to choose," Davis said. "But we must face down every threat to that right."
Simon, who personally opposes abortion, has said that as governor he would uphold all legal and constitutional "protections of reproductive freedom."
In the second spot, airing in the more conservative Central Valley, Davis touts his law enforcement endorsements and cites efforts to crack down on gangs and the production of methamphetamine, a particular plague in the valley.
