SACRAMENTO — Rifts among three of the leading Republican contenders for governor emerged Saturday as they began competing for support from party loyalists with a united assault on Democratic incumbent Gov. Gray Davis.
In Los Angeles, Davis campaigned against the recall at a labor union barbecue in Echo Park.
"They don't want to recall me," he told several hundred supporters, mostly Latinos. "They want to recall the progress we've made over the last four years."
He also voiced support for a bill that would provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, a subject of intense lobbying by Latino leaders who had been angered by his resistance to a version of the bill earlier in his tenure.
While Davis hammered GOP lawmakers for proposing budget cuts to health and education programs, his own fiscal record was the target of scathing attacks by Republicans Tom McClintock, Bill Simon Jr. and San Diego area Rep. Darrell Issa.
The three appealed to conservatives at a rally outside the state Capitol by blaming Davis for the state's fiscal crisis and by calling for the governor's removal in the Oct. 7 recall election. The rally drew 1,000 supporters of the recall to the Capitol steps, where they carried "Dump Davis" signs and shouted "No more Gray!"
Simon, who lost to Davis in the race for governor last November, said his Democratic rival had "lied about the budget" during the 2002 campaign. He cited the way Davis' projections of the size of the budget shortfall jumped dramatically after the election.
"I don't think there are many Californians who believe that Davis honestly thought in early November that the budget deficit would be that low -- only to find out 11 days later that the scales dropped from his eyes like Paul on the road to Damascus, and he had some type of an epiphany," said Simon, invoking Paul's conversion to Christianity in the Bible. "I don't find that credible."
Simon, a businessman who lives in Pacific Palisades, did not formally declare his candidacy but left little doubt about his intentions. In an aggressive speech that recapped his campaign themes from last year, he outlined budget plans for "when I am governor in 2006 -- or maybe in 2003."
While Issa, Simon and McClintock were united in their criticism of Davis, they began to diverge in trying to establish which of them would be his strongest rival. If all three put their names on the ballot, they will inevitably compete for the same slice of the electorate: the Republican Party's conservative base.
