Trailing Democrats Target Davis as Primary Nears

Ratcheting up their public criticism as the Democratic gubernatorial contest spirals toward a contentious close, the two trailing candidates let loose on front-runner Gray Davis on Wednesday, one suggesting he had usurped taxpayer money for his campaign and the other saying he is too meek for the office.

Proving the maxim that the front-runner is identifiable by the bull’s-eye on his back, Davis came under fire from businessman Al Checchi because he has used government rates and government-paid tickets to fly on campaign-related trips.

The third Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jane Harman of Torrance, sharply questioned Davis’ leadership capacity with a bristling denunciation of his reluctance to support a ban on cheap handguns. For good measure, she also hammered away at Checchi and the sole major Republican candidate, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

Davis brushed aside the criticism--even as he lodged a few complaints of his own. For the second straight day, he concentrated on playing error-free ball, appearing before a friendly group of fellow war veterans to cut the ribbon opening a veterans service center.

Lungren also tried to glide toward the November election, not allowing the names of the Democratic candidates to pass his lips as he campaigned in a schoolyard with a Republican candidate for state controller, San Mateo County Supervisor Ruben Barrales.

The heightened nastiness came as Secretary of State Bill Jones predicted that 42% of California’s 14.6 million registered voters will cast ballots in the state’s first blanket primary next Tuesday. That would be the largest turnout in a gubernatorial primary in 16 years.

Part of the appeal, Jones said, is the new primary system, which allows people to vote for the candidate of their choice and not to be limited, as they were in the past, to candidates from their own party. Independents also will be able to vote for the first time in a primary.

Campaign Expenses Subject of Dispute

Checchi’s assault on Davis had its roots in a Los Angeles Times story last week reporting that Davis took advantage of the state’s discounted travel rates when going to locales where he was largely campaigning for office, not just acting as lieutenant governor.

His practice, which Davis defended as appropriate, is in contrast with that of Gov. Pete Wilson, the man he seeks to replace. Wilson’s practice is to pay for all travel out of campaign funds and never use the discounted state rate once the campaign season begins, his aides said.

In his attack on Davis, however, Checchi went further than the story and strayed onto murky ground. He noted that Davis’ most recent campaign finance report showed that the lieutenant governor was claiming not to have traveled at campaign expense in the last two months--although he is known to have taken commercial airliners to campaign events during that period.

“In the airline industry, we had two words for this: One of them is fraud and one of them is theft of service,” said Checchi, a multimillionaire who is a major stockholder in Northwest Airlines.

Asked whether he was explicitly accusing Davis of fraud, Checchi said: “No, what I’m suggesting is that there is information that is out there that is going to be investigated. There is no question about that.”

He did not indicate how an investigation might come about, but said he had not initiated one.

More problematic for Checchi’s assertions, the businessman omitted mention of another part of Davis’ finance reports, which showed that Davis received more than $12,000 worth of flights in private planes from campaign donors in the last two months. He earlier had reported another $12,000 in donated private planes.

Davis said his political travel has been largely handled by the donated private planes--not by charging trips to the state as Checchi alleged.

“That’s inaccurate,” Davis said.

For his part, Davis accused Checchi of hiring a video photographer to trail him and said the photographer has tailgated his car and shoved the camera in his face.

“He is a pest. . . . This is reminiscent of Nixon’s dirty political tricks,” Davis said, alleging further that he believes other Checchi employees were rooting around in his campaign office over the recent holiday weekend. Checchi had no immediate comment on that assertion.

Harman, like Checchi trying to generate some new enthusiasm, tried for the second straight day to use the issue of gun control as a larger metaphor for political character. All three Democratic candidates share identical positions on guns, favoring a ban on assault-style weapons and so-called Saturday night specials. That has not stopped Harman from arguing that she is the most vociferous anti-gun candidate.

“Where was Gray Davis?” Harman asked, when Wilson last year vetoed legislation to ban the cheap handguns. Noting that Davis said at the time that he had not even read the bill, she said: “Gray Davis had his chance to stand up and be counted. . . . And he didn’t. California deserves bolder leadership.”

To underscore that argument, Harman employed the word “bold” or some variation no less than a dozen times during a lunchtime appearance before the Commonwealth Club in San Jose.

“Bold leadership is not spending 23 years trying to walk 15 feet,” she gibed, using Davis’ own description of his progression from chief of staff for former Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. to gubernatorial candidate. “Bold leadership is not saying you didn’t read the bill when you’re president of the [state] Senate”--one of Davis’ roles as lieutenant governor.

Davis and Lungren, for the most part, spent the day trying to stay out of trouble, the preferred route for front-runners. Davis presided over the ceremonial opening of the Sacramento Veterans’ Resource Center, where he none too subtly reminded veterans of his Vietnam service as he sought their votes.

He praised the center’s plan to give homeless veterans a sense of family as the first step toward finding jobs and housing. “One thing I want to do as governor, assuming the Lord keeps smiling, . . . is to reinforce this sense of connectedness,” he said.

Of Issues and Humor

Nearly overlooked amid the sniping Wednesday were issues of substance.

Harman called for restructuring the state’s budget system to end the transfer of property taxes from local governments to Sacramento. She did not say, however, how she would make up the resulting multibillion-dollar gap in state funds, which go largely to education.

Lungren was closely questioned at Garfield Charter School by a parent interested in his views on Proposition 227, the anti-bilingual education initiative that all the major candidates oppose.

“I believe that overall the statewide mandate on bilingual education is a failure and it ought to be removed,” he said. But he added that how students learn English ought to be determined by local schools, not the state.

He refused to even step into the Democratic muddle. Asked his views on campaigns that are self-financed by millionaires--this on a day when multimillionaire Harman slashed at Checchi for financing his effort--Lungren evaded the matter with a joke.

“I’ve never been tempted to finance my own,” he said. “I don’t have the dough.”