The campaign to recall Gov. Gray Davis may have gotten its start among conservative Republican activists and their allies on talk radio, but it's clear now that the movement has spread well beyond the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that the governor would like to blame for his troubles.

It's also apparent that Davis has precious few friends to call on in this time of political need. And he will soon be needing a lot of them, because his usual strategy of running as the lesser of evils, of trying to scare Democratic voters into choosing him over "extremist" alternatives, is falling apart.

Green Party stalwart Peter Camejo, who got 5 percent of the vote in last year's election, is back and will run again in the recall. So, too, will columnist and TV commentator Arianna Huffington, who plans to enter the race as a left-leaning independent.
The first Democrat of any real note to file papers was former Assemblywoman Audie Bock of Oakland, who knows a thing or two about insurgencies. Bock, an expert in Japanese cinema and a community college instructor, captured her Assembly seat as a Green running against a well-known but little-liked Democratic nominee. She ran for re-election as an independent, but lost when the Democrats righted their ship and took back the seat.

At this point, few expect Camejo, Huffington or Bock to become governor, although Huffington, with access to money and media, might catch fire. But these early stirrings on the left are a leading indicator. By Saturday, top Democrats and their supporters in organized labor will have to decide if Davis can be saved or if, as seems increasingly likely, they must rally around another candidate and offer voters an alternative to the well-financed Republicans headed for the ballot.

"If it's a campaign about Gray Davis, we lose," state Sen. Don Perata, D-Alameda, told the San Francisco Chronicle this week. "My own experience tells me that, and my own constituency as well. And I represent one of the most liberal districts in the state of California. There will not be people coming out motivated to save Gray Davis."

If Davis does prove unable to keep fellow Democrats at his side, it will be because he has been a loner in a business that values personal connections. He climbed the political ladder not by tending to alliances with fellow pols or by building a massive organization of loyal supporters, but by being ruthlessly focused and calculating and by being in the right place at the right time. He was a champion fund-raiser adept at squeezing money out of people who wanted something from government.

But qualities that proved to be strengths for a campaigner have been weaknesses for a governor.

Davis has been unable to lead because few in the Legislature trust him enough to follow.

"You really have to start out with personal relationships in this business," San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said in a television interview last week. "Gray Davis, unfortunately, has zero personal relationships." Brown offered several theories on why Davis "offends a lot of people." He's not hands-on in dealing with policy. He doesn't make appointments quickly enough. He's not decisive. But Brown really nailed it when he ventured from the technical to the personal.

"He certainly doesn't have any rhythm in his system that allows him to be comfortable at dinner with you or me," said the former Assembly speaker.

Another top Democrat, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, told The Bee that the same ailment -- essentially the lack of any visible soul -- has prevented Davis from establishing a meaningful rapport with the people he governs. Lockyer said Davis' two Republican predecessors, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, while neither was a warm figure, each had some level of personal support among voters that they could call upon. Davis does not.

"Part of Gray's problem is there was never any good will or bonding with voters," Lockyer said. "Even a Deukmejian or a Wilson had some modest reservoir of good will with voters that thought they were purposeful, or principled or decent people."

That's a brutal assessment from a political rival.

But even the governor's own wife, Sharon Davis, said in an interview on KQED radio last week that her husband has a problem connecting with people.

She said he grew up in a time and place when children were "seen and not heard" and finds it difficult to talk about himself.

"The voters want to know who you are, obviously, and for some reason Gray presents himself as who he is, and they go, 'Well, we don't know if we like that. Be a little bit different,' " Sharon Davis said. "But you can't be genuine if you're trying to be a person that you're not."

Davis has never been anything but a cipher to California voters. He won the top job as a safe alternative who promised to be a steady hand at the helm. But the ship went aground. And now the voters he frightened into electing him seem even more scared at the prospect of keeping him around for another three years.