Davis faces dire political consequences if power woes linger

HEADLINE: Davis faces dire political consequences if power woes linger

BYLINE: By Daniel Borenstein

BODY:

??WALNUT CREEK, Calif. _ As Democrats prepare for their first statewide
convention since the electricity crisis erupted, some elected officials and
strategists are warning of dire political consequences if Gov. Gray Davis
fails
to clean up the power mess.

??"All of us should be thinking about the effect the energy crisis is going to
have on our chances of maintaining control of both houses, and the effect the
governor will have on the ticket up and down," said state Sen. Don Perata,
D-Alameda. "If he has not performed well and he has a D after his name, that
could be problematic."

??Garry South, the governor's top political strategist, said Thursday that the
state's electricity woes probably won't be over soon, but the voters
understand
Davis didn't create the problem.

??"It won't be solved in six months," South said. "This is an immediate
problem
that is not susceptible to an immediate solution. This is a several-year
process
to get this situation back under control."

??As for the governor's critics, "I think they should be asked to produce
their
own plan. It's awful easy to take pot shots, but most of those who I read
about
in the newspapers have no plan."

??The intraparty sniping on the eve of the party convention highlights the
frustration Democrats are feeling about the crisis_and its potential political
damage.

??Four months ago, this weekend's convention in Anaheim seemed certain to be a
Davis fete. Although Democrats had lost the presidency, Al Gore easily carried
California and the party was in firm control of the Legislature and the
state's
congressional delegation.

??Davis had led the Gore effort in California and the governor was personally
and politically popular across the state. This would have been the convention
for him to showcase his achievements for education, the issue he had promised
to
make the hallmark of his first term.

??But electricity now overshadows everything else. To be sure, the governor
will tout his policy achievements during a Saturday morning speech to the
convention delegates. And he is not shying away from the spotlight.

??Tonight, he will host a party for the delegates at Disney's California
Adventure Theme Park. That prompted one Democratic consultant from Sacramento
who won't be attending to quip, "We're in fantasy land here, thank you. We
don't
need to go to Disneyland for that."

??Some are shaking their heads in disbelief at how the governor has handled
the
events of the past week. "In many ways, he appears to have gone politically
tone
deaf," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, political analyst at Claremont Graduate
University. "His instincts are not serving him well."

??While his top aides were meeting with legislators last week to warn them
that
a $10 billion bond package won't be enough to get the state out of the crisis,
Davis was at a $10,000-per-person Palm Springs golf tournament to raise money
for his re-election campaign.

??When his hand-picked members of the Public Utilities Commission this week
approved an electricity rate hike that experts have been predicting for
months,
Davis claimed that he didn't know about the plan before it was announced and
that he thought it was premature.

??Other Democrats, however, thought the commission action was overdue. "I'm
glad to see the PUC stepping out and doing something along the lines that some
of us have been talking about needing to be done for the last six or eight
weeks," said state Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch. "There's a high level of
frustration. There haven't been clear answers to what the solution is."

??South, the Davis political strategist, said a lot of factors are outside the
governor's control. "No one can predict with any certainty where this is going
to go, and no one can predict when this situation is going to be brought under
control. We don't control the generators, we don't control the FERC (Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission), we don't control what Wall Street is going to
do."

??As for the potential political fallout, South said the governor and
Democrats
remain in a strong position. After all, he said, the deregulation plan was
pushed through by a Republican governor and Republicans in Washington are
blocking efforts to cap prices.

??Jack Pitney, government professor at Claremont McKenna College, predicted
Davis could weather the electricity crisis. "People who are following it know
it's roots run deeper than the Davis administration and the Republicans don't
have any plausible alternatives," he said.

??"My read of public opinion is people don't think there's a simple and easy
solution and they're not expecting one. They may be impatient but they won't
necessarily take it out on (Davis)."

??It's too early to predict the political outcome, said Mark Baldassare,
pollster at the Public Policy Institute of California.

??"The impacts won't be clear until people have gone through a few billing
cycles and we've gone through the summer blackouts, until we see what the
personal impacts are so we know what the political impacts are," he said.
"That's the really crucial period for Gray Davis' political future, after this
summer."