From Barrio to Contender for Governor

California's Bustamante Moves Up in the Polls

Sunday, August 31, 2003; Page A01

SACRAMENTO -- His friends say that Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante seems to have an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. Now the slow but steady Democrat, the grandson of Mexican immigrants who only this year managed to get his college diploma, is suddenly positioned to become California's governor.

Although Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has dominated the news in the historic recall election of Gov. Gray Davis (D), it is Bustamante who has consistently matched or beaten the Hollywood star in recent polls among those vying to replace Davis if he is bounced from office five weeks from now.

Bustamante represents the Republicans' nightmare scenario, whereby Davis is recalled but Bustamante, in some ways more liberal than Davis, defeats a divided field of GOP candidates including Schwarzenegger, state Sen. Tom McClintock and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth.

"If Gray Davis is Dr. Evil, then Cruz Bustamante is Mini-Me," Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh said. Schwarzenegger dismisses Bustamante as a Davis clone "with a receding hairline and a mustache."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5417-2003Aug30.html

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