The only real job of California's lieutenant governor, someone once observed, is to check the newspaper each morning, make sure the governor is still alive and then find a service club to address.

It's a little harsh, perhaps, but succinctly captures the lieutenant governor's essentially meaningless role -- especially when, as is usually true, he isn't on intimate, or even amiable, terms with the governor.

Cruz Bustamante, the current holder of the office, admitted as much in a recent news conference when he acknowledged that it had been months since he had even had a personal conversation with Gov. Gray Davis. The two, to put it mildly, are not close.

The news conference itself may have been the highlight of Bustamante's political career, at least to date. It drew 24 television cameras, perhaps an all-time record for the Capitol, as Bustamante announced that he had chosen Oct. 7 as the date of a historic special election to determine whether Davis should be recalled.

But if it was the highlight in dramatic terms, it didn't go particularly well for Bustamante, who's in his second term after serving a stint in the state Assembly, including two years as its speaker. He fumbled his way through a particularly knotty aspect of the situation: whether he would call an election only on the recall, or also include an election for a successor should Davis be dumped.

It had been assumed that a two-part election would be held, but Bustamante had been telling reporters that he was inclined to call just a recall vote on the assumption that he, as lieutenant governor, would succeed Davis under the somewhat ambiguous language of the state constitution. Bustamante pulled back from that position and did, in fact, call a two-part election but when pressed by reporters, offered little rationale for the switch.

"I left it to the attorneys with the expertise to draft the language," Bustamante said, figuratively washing his hands of the issue, which was later taken into the courts. "I had no say as to the wording of that (proclamation)," he added.

Bustamante came across as waffling, rather than decisive, shuffling responsibility to nameless attorneys. And the image was sharpened a few days later when, after weeks of insisting he wouldn't do it, Bustamante filed as a candidate to succeed Davis if he is recalled.

Bustamante no longer has the luxury of hiding in an obscure, powerless office. Suddenly, he's on a very public stage as the default Democratic candidate to succeed Davis. If it becomes apparent that the latter's goose is cooked, Bustamante may find himself in essentially a two-person duel with the leading Republican, movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger. He could even temporarily succeed to the governorship before Oct. 7 if Davis were to resign -- not considered likely, but no more improbable than any other facet of this odd spectacle.

So what kind of a governor would Bustamante be? Based on his career in the Assembly and his few brushes with substance as lieutenant governor, it's not likely that he would be a decisive chief executive. His reputation among Capitol insiders is that of an amiable politician who doesn't like to make waves. He tends to defer to others, such as campaign adviser (and lobbyist) Richie Ross, whose clients include the Indian gambling casinos that are Bustamante's single most important source of political financing.

Among Capitol veterans, an enduring image of Bustamante's diffidence was formed late one night in 1997 when Bill Lockyer, then the president pro tem of the state Senate, and Assembly Republican leader Curt Pringle marched into Bustamante's office to confront him about dithering on a state budget matter. As the two walked into the front door of the speaker's suite, Bustamante tried to sneak out of a back door, only to retreat when he spotted a clutch of waiting reporters.

Bustamante may be the consensus choice of Democratic interest groups, particularly labor unions, because they consider him to be malleable, and running in the recall election may be his only realistic chance to become governor. But his path to the office must run through a man known as "The Terminator." Does Bustamante have what it takes to confront Schwarzenegger and be the centerpiece of a very high-profile campaign for a powerful office? We'll see.