With only his wife nearby, Gov. Gray Davis sat down in his West Hollywood condo, turned on a tape recorder and spilled out his thoughts as he faced the most critical point of his 30-year career.

The Democratic governor, seeking the advice of friends and former President Bill Clinton during the past few days, decided that an earlier speech written by his political staff didn't properly express his true feelings, his wife said.

So he tossed it and started from scratch, producing a "stream of consciousness" monologue into the recorder while sequestered at their 1,000- square-foot condo. It was a signal that the defiant speech he gave Tuesday from UCLA needed to come from a place Davis rarely taps in public -- his emotions.

'FROM THE HEART'

"He went home and he tape-recorded what he wanted to say," Sharon Davis said in an interview. "As much as people know him, he knew what he wanted to say. He just didn't feel that the original speech conveyed that it was really coming from the heart. He wanted a speech that came from the heart."

Although the governor gives at least one speech a day, he is not known to be particularly adept at it. He often insists on inserting minor policy details, statistics and long lists of thank-yous to people in the audience instead of grand statements meant to inspire.

But aides and friends said Davis felt he needed to make a major, emotional statement to the public amid the frenzy of the recall and the worst public- opinion numbers for a political leader since former President Richard Nixon faced the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. Like Nixon's "Checkers" speech in 1952, which rehabilitated his career, Davis' aides believe he needs something big to save his job.

In a series of conference calls with a small circle of close advisers, including Garry South and chief of staff Lynn Schenk, Davis agreed to a major address and then a series of town hall meetings to connect with voters. Clinton -- no stranger to crises, town hall meetings or mea culpas -- was consulted as well.

TALKS WITH CLINTON

"He talked to several friends," she said. "Gray is a person that actually likes to consult with people. He loves to bounce ideas off people. Certainly, the former president is known as a great communicator, and so Gray talked with him at least three or four times since we started this process and in the last couple of days."

The governor cleared his schedule for the past two days while he worked on the speech. Sharon Davis said she transcribed the tape Davis made, and they handed it over to speechwriters to fill in the blanks. It was still being reworked Tuesday morning as the speech approached.

In another significant change for the governor, Davis pared the speech down to make it more about his performance and the future of California, she said. The speech ended up being combative and highly political.

Sharon Davis has started a Web log on the anti-recall campaign site, www.no- recall.com, where she has written that journalists often misinterpret her husband's personality and falsely claim they have no friends. She said his record as governor has been maligned but that he remains calm amid the intense hostility.

"Almost a Zen-like calm," she said. "He kind of accepts that people are angry and they are angry with him and he's being held responsible. It's a tough thing when you know you've done some good things and you have to take responsibility for all the bad things."