LOS ANGELES, March 6 (UPI) -- President Bush pledged Wednesday to campaign on behalf of political rookie Bill Simon for the governorship of California during a long eight-month campaign against incumbent veteran Gray Davis.
The president was on a speakerphone with Simon and more than 200 Republican candidates, strategists and loyalists during a "unity breakfast" in Los Angeles to congratulate the businessman on winning the party's nomination Tuesday in his first run for elected office.
"It was a pretty good warm-up for the general election," Bush shouted into the phone as the crowd worked on their bacon, eggs and Danish, adding that he would travel to California "as soon as I can" in order to bolster Simon's chances against the Democratic incumbent.
"I know you can beat Gray Davis and I want to help any way that I can," the president promised.
The presidential call was portrayed by Republican officials as the first of many pitches Bush will make for Simon between now and November in a marathon race that strategists say is important not only to the Golden State but to the national strategies of both parties as well.
Some political analysts said Wednesday that Bush would like nothing better than to see Davis, who has been mentioned in the past as a potential White House contender, knocked out of the political picture before Bush runs for re-election.
Simon's campaign manager, Sal Russo, said the showdown with Davis could siphon off millions of dollars from the Democrats' national treasury that could otherwise be used in the next presidential race.
"It's a chess game," Russo told reporters in the hallway. "Presidential politics is all about playing chess, and they won't have enough money to compete with George W. Bush in the states that were close last time."
"It's a backbreaker for the Democrats if we can make California competitive, so the White House is going to be in here with both feet, no question about it," Russo predicted.
Russo estimated that the campaign would cost $20 million to $30 million, and he was confident that Simon would not have to dip into his own respectable personal fortune to keep the bandwagon rolling even though television costs could run as high as $2 million a week as the race heats up.
"I think we can raise all the money we need," he said. "I think the polls are going to show we're ahead...and, for all practical purposes, this will be a competitive race. That opens up a lot."
The rest will be up to Simon, who showed throughout the course of the heated primary race that he could stand the grind of hopping from city to city and back again as he mounted a late surge that catapulted him past political veterans Bill Jones and former Los Angeles mayor Dick Riordan.
Analysts have concluded that Simon was able to overcome Riordan, the early favorite, by stressing his own conservative philosophy over the pragmatic style Riordan used while serving as mayor of ethnically diverse Los Angeles during eight years when Democrats controlled Sacramento, the White House and the state's Senate delegation.
Simon's strategy may have appealed to the Republican faithful, but he must now expand his reach to independent and conservative Democratic voters who put the state behind Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the most recent elections.
Davis on Tuesday night said at a rally of his own that Simon was "a true-blue, think-tank conservative" while he himself was "a practical problem solver."
There were plenty of references made at Wednesday's breakfast to former president Ronald Reagan and President Bush, but there also plenty of promises that the party would reach out to minority groups and women who tend to lean Democratic.
In answering the question of how to appeal to such voters, Simon borrowed a page from Bush's playbook and said that his campaign would focus on nuts-and-bolts issues such as taxes, education and the economy that are important to liberals and conservatives alike.
"We believe we have a message that resonates with Californians," Simon said, adding that if questions arose from the media about abortion, gun control or some other knotty national controversy, that he would most likely "change the subject."
He was also unconcerned that Bush's active support could backfire months from now if the president's popularity took a swan dive for some unforeseen reason -- the economy, the war on terrorism and the administration's role in the California energy crisis have been lurking in the shadows.
"If the economy goes south, then it (the election) becomes a referendum on Gray's administration," Simon said. "Everybody knows that the economy was becoming softer before Sept. 11."
Along with the president and Simon supporters such as Jack Kemp and Rudy Giuliani, the Republicans feel they also have two valuable resources in Riordan, who connects with urban voters of all creeds and colors, and Jones, an outspoken Fresno rancher with state government experience who is expected to stump for Simon in the state's central agricultural regions.
A key Davis ally in the San Joaquin Valley was Rep. Gary Condit, who lost Tuesday in his bid for nomination to another term in Congress and is now burdened with too much personal baggage to be an asset this time around.
