Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat running to replace Gov. Gray Davis in the recall election, nearly doubled his war chest Tuesday with a controversial $2 million pledge from a powerful Indian tribe flush with casino profits.

Not long after the announcement by the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will launch a statewide television ad criticizing the role special interest groups play in politics.

"Special interests have a stranglehold on Sacramento," the action film star says in a 15-second spot previewed late in the day. "Here's how it works: Money comes in. Favors go out. The people lose. We need to send a message: Game over."

Schwarzenegger himself is accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporations, business executives and agricultural interests. He maintains those groups are not seeking undue influence, but he criticizes others for taking money from gaming tribes and unions.

Davis, meanwhile, said he will launch his first ads of the campaign today. In two 30-second spots, his strongest political ally in California, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, urges voters to reject the recall on Oct. 7.

The spots will run in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the state's two largest media markets, where Democratic voters are concentrated, and also in the Monterey area.

With Labor Day behind them and only five weeks until the election, all the major candidates prepared for days of steady campaigning.

Schwarzenegger, Tom McClintock and Peter Ueberroth took to talk radio on Tuesday, continuing their appeals to largely conservative listeners.

Most major candidates also prepared for their first debate, to be hosted today in Walnut Creek by the Contra Costa Times and Oakland's KTVU Channel 2 and televised in the Sacramento area.

Independent Arianna Huffington and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo also were scheduled to participate.

Only Schwarzenegger has said he will not attend, a decision for which he has been attacked by competitors who say he does not want to be pinned down on specifics. Instead, he has plans to be in Long Beach making his first full-length speech of the campaign.

The actor so far has committed to only one debate, sponsored by the California Broadcasters Association, in which candidates will get the questions in advance. That event is now set for Sept. 24.

But the Schwarzenegger controversy took a back seat to news that the Viejas tribe would give Bustamante $1.5 million and spend another $500,000 on get-out-the-vote efforts.

A new campaign finance law limits individual donors to no more than $21,200 per candidate. Bustamante's advisers, however, believe a loophole in the law allows him to skirt that limit by accepting donations through last year's campaign account, formed before Proposition 34's contribution limits went into effect, then spending it on the recall campaign.

"We are going to do whatever the lawyers tell us is legal to do," said his campaign consultant, Richie Ross.

Bustamante has now amassed more than $2.8 million from Indian tribes, by far his largest contributors and perhaps his best hope to compete against the governor's fund raising and Schwarzenegger's fortune.

Ross brushed off criticism about the appearance of donations as tribes negotiate with the state over gaming compacts.

"Cruz has made it clear to them in his campaign, that as governor his job is not to be an advocate for their point of view," he said.

But critics are putting up a fight. Republican state Sen. Ross Johnson of Irvine on Tuesday asked the Fair Political Practices Commission to seek an injunction preventing Bustamante from spending money in excess of the new campaign limits. Johnson threatened to file a lawsuit if the commission does not act.

With the negative attention turned elsewhere, Davis' campaign spent Tuesday promoting the Feinstein ads.

Polls show Feinstein, who survived a recall attempt in the 1980s as mayor of San Francisco, is the most popular politician in California, appealing to Democrats, independent voters and moderate Republicans.

In both Davis spots, Feinstein speaks directly to the camera. In neither ad does she mention the governor by name.

She argues the recall is led by Republicans angry they lost last November's election, that with 135 candidates on the ballot it could lead to chaos and that Davis deserves the chance to finish his term in office.

"Going out of the box, we're focusing on the Democratic base," said Davis campaign director Steve Smith. "We want to lock those votes up first and then expand to the independents and moderate Republicans."

In Schwarzenegger's radio appearances on the nationally syndicated "Michael Medved Show" and on the "John and Ken Show" on KFI-AM in Los Angeles, the actor courted conservative voters still on the fence about supporting a moderate.

Like his campaign co-chairman, former Gov. Pete Wilson, the actor who immigrated legally from Austria as a young man also said he would seek reimbursement from the federal government for expenses associated with illegal immigration.

Schwarzenegger said he would bring together governors from other states that either share a border with Mexico or are affected by heavy illegal immigration to lobby the Bush administration. He reiterated his opposition to giving undocumented immigrants driver's licenses. And he said the state should push the federal government to tighten security at the border and reimburse costs associated with undocumented immigration.

Schwarzenegger also spoke against any kind of blanket amnesty for undocumented workers already in the country. "As soon as you have amnesty there are more undocumented immigrants coming in," he said.

Schwarzenegger also said the government should "look seriously" at providing tax incentives to keep movie production in the state rather than see it move overseas.

"I think it's important that the state look seriously at tax incentives, and that we work together with the federal government, because the state alone cannot offer the best deals," he said.