Gray Davis' modus operandi as a political campaigner has been to spend millions of dollars demonizing his opponents, often on the flimsiest of grounds, and hope that voters will find him to be a more acceptable alternative.

Davis' scorched-earth approach to politics became evident during his first bid for major office, a 1992 campaign for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate when he aired television ads likening rival Dianne Feinstein to Leona Helmsley, the New York hotelier/tax evader.

Flashing side-by-side photos of the two women, the TV spot's off-camera announcer intoned:
"Leona Helmsley and Dianne Feinstein? Hotel queen Helmsley misreported $1 million to the IRS. Feinstein misreported $8 million to the Fair Political Practices Commission. Helmsley blames her servants for the felony. Feinstein blames her staff for the lawsuit. Helmsley is in jail. Feinstein wants to be a senator? Truth for a change. Gray Davis, Democrat for U.S. Senate."

The ad generated a storm of criticism and was often described as hitting a new low for misleading, slash-and-burn politics, but Davis was unapologetic. Ironically, the ad probably hurt him more than Feinstein, who easily won the nomination and the Senate seat.

Davis, however, was not about to change his style, and when he ran for governor in 1998, he once again went on the attack, portraying Republican rival Dan Lungren as hopelessly right-wing on such hot-button issues as abortion and offshore oil drilling.

Lungren responded in kind and the race degenerated into a mudslinging contest that Davis won handily.

With his popularity having fallen below 50 percent, Davis faced a dicey re-election campaign in 2002, and public and private polls indicated that former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican with appeal to Democratic voters, would be his strongest opponent.

Davis, having amassed an immense campaign war chest from special-interest groups, spent upward of $10 million on an unprecedented video assault on Riordan, clearly aimed at denying him the Republican nomination. And with Riordan's erratic campaign style, the attack campaign worked. Davis got the Republican foe he wanted, inexperienced businessman Bill Simon. Even so, Simon came within five percentage points of ousting Davis -- a strong indication that Riordan, in fact, would have denied Davis a second term.

So the demonizing strategy has worked for Davis two out of three times. It's not surprising that as he contemplates the prospect of becoming the first California governor to face a recall election, he's once again reverting to type -- albeit through surrogates. The union-centered campaign to stymie the recall is unleashing a series of direct and indirect attacks on Darrell Issa, the Republican congressman who is bankrolling the recall petition drive and clearly wants to offer himself as a replacement.

"Opposition research" teams for the anti-recall organization have dredged up every potentially negative aspect of Issa's life, dating back three-plus decades to his somewhat tarnished adolescence. The record has included a couple of arrests, and one misdemeanor conviction for carrying a concealed weapon. Some of the negative material has been leaked to newspaper reporters, while other bits have been released directly.

The anti-Issa crusade on Davis' behalf already has hit a point that rivals the Feinstein-Helmsley ad for below-the-belt tactics. The anti-recall organization released a bit of videotape of a 1998 Los Angeles County gun show at which some Nazi memorabilia was on display and at which the Issa campaign organization (he was running for the U.S. Senate at the time) maintained a booth. Somehow, one assumes, this was supposed to "prove" that Issa was pro-Nazi or something equally noxious, but it had to be the thinnest piece of political propaganda ever conjured up in California.

As typical as it might be of Davis' approach to campaigning, the anti-Issa onslaught might backfire. The issue before voters, if there's a recall election, will be Davis' own record, and Issa is likely to be just one of several would-be replacements. And with a 21 percent approval rating, Davis would be better served to raise his own standing, not besmirch others.