California Recall Is Talk of Nation, Even in Congress

Maybe we should just have a 24-hour recall channel.

In Congress last week, at a crowded committee hearing on the big energy blackout in the northeast, Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican, was about to hand the floor to Darrell Issa, the Vista Republican who bankrolled the signature-gathering that triggered the recall: “The chair is now pleased to recognize Mr. Total Recall, the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for an opening statement,” Tauzin said.

But then he indicated a reporter in the front row. “Darrell, before you give your opening statement, I want to point out that the gentleman sitting in the front out there ... remarkably reminds us of Gray Davis. I was a little concerned that Gray Davis had shown up today to face off with you.”

Issa dryly retorted, “I’m sure that Gov. Davis is busy doing the work of the people in California today.”

And, to the west: Iowa has its presidential caucuses in January, but if you are inclined to take risks before then, there’s the Iowa Electronics Market, the University of Iowa business college’s “real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections.” Just now the hot market is California’s recall election. The IEM opened for recall trading on Aug. 27 in two markets: one on the recall itself and the second on a possible new governor.

It’s a benign, business-school spin on the now-defunct Pentagon online futures market for betting on Middle Eastern developments that was advertised as a vehicle for profiting on assassinations and other terrorist acts. Unlike Iowa’s program, the Pentagon’s was not promoted as a possible part of a college curriculum.

Davis’ Comment Is Target of Spoof

It was the mom bit that did it. Republicans in the Legislature “would rather shoot their mother than increase any taxes,” Gov. Gray Davis remarked before the first gubernatorial/recall debate. “I say that figuratively,” he added hastily.

State Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a Murietta Republican, saw the moment on the evening news, and “the idea came to me.” His staff moved quickly, and by the next morning, Hollingsworth had these buttons made up to hand out to his fellow GOP senators: Whistler’s Mother in the cross-hairs.

Reaction on the Senate floor was “most surprising -- most people hadn’t heard the governor’s comments, so they had no clue,” said Hollingsworth. “I thought, ‘Maybe I’m giving him more publicity than I should!’ ” Hollingsworth had a button delivered to Davis’ office with the message, “We may not be willing to sacrifice our own mothers, but odds are that we would sacrifice Whistler’s mother ‘in a heartbeat’ to avoid raising taxes.”

The original painting, by James McNeil Whistler, is now at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, in an exhibition that explores “its life as an icon and an inspiration for satirists ... and others.” The real title of the painting? “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1.”

Points Taken

* If Reagan’s are there, can Schwarzenegger’s be far behind? The Nixon Library in Yorba Linda is putting on display 18 huge playbills from Ronald Reagan’s films, dating from 1937 to 1957. Among them is a poster for “Hellcats of the Navy,” co-starring one Nancy Davis, the future Nancy Reagan. Other co-stars shown from Reagan’s films include Shirley Temple and Bonzo the chimpanzee.

* San Francisco police Capt. Greg Corrales got a letter asking for his donation to the re-election drive of Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan -- the man who got Corrales and five other top police officials indicted on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the letter was posted on the wall of the Mission District police station. The case became known as “Fajitagate,” accusations that SFPD brass tried to cover up a brawl in which three off-duty rookie cops wrangled with two civilians over a bag of leftover fajitas. The charges were dropped and all record of them ordered erased by a judge. Stay tuned for the lawsuits.

* Los Angeles author and activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson is forming an exploratory campaign committee to look into the possibility of his taking a run at the 47th Assembly seat -- a spot soon to be vacated by termed-out Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson.

* San Diego Democratic Rep. Bob Filner has endorsed former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as his choice in the Democratic presidential field.

* Gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington morphed the standard political “meet and greet” into a “meet and eat” with a “Pizza for the People” event in Culver City last week -- the first, the campaign promises, in a series. Next: anchovy?

* Longtime Orange County Register political reporter and editor Larry Peterson, now living in Georgia, will soon publish “City Editor,” a novel about a reporter’s fabricated story about Hillary Rodham Clinton and pressures to fire the newspaper’s star political writer.

You Can Quote Me

“For $1 million in California, I could get enough signatures to put a proposition on the ballot to outlaw ice cream.”

-- Walnut Creek electrician Donnie Snyder, demonstrating against the recall outside the first gubernatorial debate.

Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Carl Ingram, Jean O. Pasco and Richard Simon.