As California's secretary of state certified a historic recall election against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis late Wednesday, movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger weighed his desire to be governor against the pitfalls of a recall candidacy, and Republicans worried that the man who is perhaps their strongest prospect for a recall candidate was getting cold feet.

Capping off a surreal day of protests and rallies outside the state Capitol, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced the certification shortly after 6:30 p.m.

More than 1.3 million valid voter signatures in support of a recall had been submitted from counties throughout the state, he said, easily surpassing a 897,158-signature threshold needed to trigger the first-ever recall election against a sitting California governor.

Shelley said the election would be held between Sept. 23 and Oct. 7. He sent word to the governor and also notified Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, whose job it will be to choose the date.
"All of us were very aware that we were making history and setting precedent," Shelley told reporters. "This could very well be one of the most important ballots our citizens may ever cast."

Davis, who toured a San Francisco child-care center Wednesday, girded for an election driven by partisan discord and general voter discontent over the state's fiscal condition. Democratic-controlled California, the largest state in the nation, is struggling against rising unemployment and a $38.2 billion budget shortfall, worse than that of all other states combined.

"I said if the recall gets serious, I will get serious, and I will fight to advance a progressive agenda," Davis said.

"I'm going to fight like a Bengal tiger, and one of my greatest strengths is, people have underestimated me since I was born," he said. "Every time they say I'm roadkill, I continue to win because I have great faith that the California voters are fair, and believe in fundamental fairness."

The governor's wife, Sharon, also took time to defend her husband.

"We've got a strong base to run from," she told The Bee. "We can win this."

Schwarzenegger, who has widely flirted with a possible candidacy, spent two hours closeted with political adviser George Gorton, telephoning supporters for advice.

Gorton, emerging from the meeting, said no decision had been made. His comments were more guarded than the day before, when he predicted, "It seems to me like he's going to run."

"This is an intensely private man and an intensely private family," he said. "It's an open question, and I am optimistic."

The deliberations left moderate Republicans, who have hoped to field a candidate with broad appeal to Democrats and independents, pondering the possibility that neither of the two highest-performing Republicans in polls, Schwarzenegger and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, would enter the race.

Riordan has not flatly ruled out a run but in the last week has downplayed the likelihood he would become a candidate.

"Republicans, independents and a large chunk of the Democrats do not want Gray Davis as governor, but they want a viable replacement," said GOP political consultant and former Riordan adviser Kevin Spillane.

Nevertheless, Spillane said, "if Schwarzenegger doesn't run and Riordan doesn't run, I think pessimists are jumping the gun. I still think there is a very real chance for Davis to be recalled."

Rep. Darrell Issa, the San Diego County Republican who has financed a majority of the recall campaign, and Green Party member Peter Camejo, a Bay Area money manager, remained the only declared candidates with any statewide visibility.

But last year's GOP gubernatorial nominee, Bill Simon, and state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Simi Valley, each opened exploratory accounts that would let them begin raising money and campaigning.

Schwarzenegger has said his decision to enter the race will depend in large part on his wife, Maria Shriver, an NBC news reporter and niece of late President Kennedy.

"The last thing she may want is to be part of something as a bystander where you get attacked by the media," he recently told TV Guide.

Allegations of infidelity and boorish behavior toward women have already surfaced in several media accounts, as have Schwarzenegger's past admissions of smoking marijuana and taking steroids during his body-building career.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a University of Southern California political analyst, said all of this would be dredged up in a political campaign, especially one against Davis, the "king of negative advertising."

Schwarzenegger has talked often about entering politics, and his interest seemed to grow as he touted his latest movie, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." He was well-received as he campaigned last year for a statewide child-care initiative, and generated a surfeit of publicity about his interest in politics on his latest publicity tour.

He appeared on the cover of Esquire magazine and was featured in several other national publications.

Entertainment Weekly noted that Schwarzenegger's celebrity "gains with this political peekaboo. ... Truth is, he hasn't been this interesting in years. And the timing couldn't be better."

While Schwarzenegger and other candidates pondered their options, opponents and supporters of the governor spent the day milling outside the secretary of state's office.

In the shadow of the state Capitol, dozens jammed the entrance to an adjacent Mexican restaurant.

Tempers rose and fell with the passing hours and shifting summer storm clouds, as all awaited Shelley's announcement.

"What's it they say?" remarked a sweating and bewildered David Gilliard, director of pro-recall group Rescue California. "Set up a tent. The circus will come."

There was jubilance. "You're a cult hero!" conservative local talk radio host Eric Hogue proclaimed to anti-tax activist Ted Costa, who launched the recall drive in February, during a live remote broadcast.

There was frustration. "Get out from behind your sign, you coward!" Democratic Party campaign consultant Bob Mulholland bellowed at a youthful marcher who was advocating Issa as a replacement for Davis.

And there was mischief. While Shelley is a Democrat, many of his staff members are holdovers from his Republican predecessor. A handful of them converged at their office windows to wave greetings and give thumbs-ups to recall supporters below.

Inside the Capitol, a whiff of smoke still permeated the area known as the "horseshoe," where the governor and his executive staff work.

In what some on staff glumly joked was a manifestation of the political Armageddon, a small electrical fire had broken out the night before in the office of Davis' deputy chief of staff, Michael Bustamante.

Bustamante is on leave, to serve as communications director for Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall.