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Posted on 05/04/2002 10:31:08 AM PDT by w1andsodidwe
SACRAMENTO -- Whether or not the scandal over California's $95 million software deal with Oracle Corp. rises to the level of a political corruption case, it still has potential to color the gubernatorial debate in a way that benefits Republican challenger Bill Simon.
The Oracle fiasco is ugly and embarrassing. Billed as a money-saver, the software-licensing agreement could cost the state $41 million more than if there were no contract. It's led to three high-level resignations, provided the spectacle of police entering a state office building to prevent document shredding,
Gov. Gray Davis said Friday he's been working for weeks to rescind the contract, and that he continues to do so.
"In terms of the taxpayer, I'm determined to make it right for them. ... I'm as mad as anybody else," he said.
Meanwhile, the state attorney general continues to investigate. And Republicans beat the drum for federal officials to intervene.
For all that, experts say, it probably won't lead to criminal charges close to the governor.
For one thing, it's hard to imagine a governor with a $50 million campaign war chest promising a $95 million contract in exchange for a $25,000 contribution, said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. And proving that were the case would be extremely hard, anyway.
"You'd have to find a smoking gun," Cain said. "You'd need an e-mail or something in which the contract was promised. It just doesn't seem too likely."
The more likely outcome, Cain said, is that the Oracle story could give way to any number of other stories that reflect poorly on Davis' fund-raising activities.
"You put it together with the teachers union's complaint" that Davis opposed the union's proposed bills only after it rejected his demands for $1 million in campaign contributions, Cain said, "and it starts to look, if you like, kind of slimy."
"It becomes a story about the administration extorting groups that do business with the state. It becomes about shakedown," he said. "That makes character and honesty more important issues (in the campaign) than the ideological differences of the candidates.
"And that's disastrous for the Democrats," he said. "They want to talk about issues, because they've got a really conservative candidate (in Simon)."
But November is a long way off. And the Oracle story, along with any number of investigative follow-ups, could be ancient history in the short attention spans of many voters.
Despite that, Democratic strategist Bob Mulholland thinks it will be sufficiently muddled in people's minds that it won't matter come Election Day.
"At the end of the day, after seeing all these stories about Enron and Arthur Andersen, half the people will think this is just more Enron stuff," Mulholland said. "This is a minor issue."
Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist, doubts that.
"Already, the Oracle scandal has changed the terms of the campaign debate," he said. "They're not talking about abortion anymore. They're talking about investigations, campaign contributions and shredders.
"And no politician wants to see his name in the same headline with the word 'shredder,' " said Schnur, a former spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson.
Schnur concedes that the story may be moot by the time voters get serious about the election. Its longevity, he said, depends on how closely it can be linked to the governor and on whether voters perceive it as making a difference in their lives.
Simon has tried to link the $41 million that the state auditor says the Department of Information Technology overpaid for the software licenses from Oracle to things such as teachers and school lunches.
"At a minimum, this distracts Davis from talking about the issues," Cain said. And it could deflate the already-soft support that Democrats have for Davis. That, he said, could mean they'll be less enthusiastic about showing up at the polls in November.
"The problem the Democrats will face is at what point does their disgust at Gray Davis exceed their fear of having Bill Simon, the most-conservative governor since Ronald Reagan," he said. "He could be even more conservative than Reagan, but you can't tell, because he won't tell us what he thinks."
Schnur, the GOP strategist, said Democrats also will feel pressure to conduct an intense investigation -- like the one that led to the resignation of disgraced Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush -- to avoid suggestion of a "partisan cover-up."
And he offered a somewhat sarcastic "prediction" of the debate to come.
"By next week, the Democrats will be comparing this to the Lewinsky scandal, saying it's way overdone, that people don't care about it," he said. "But this is much less Lewinsky than it is Quackenbush."
"Well, here's my prediction," Mulholland said. "Gray Davis will be re-elected by double digits."
Davis isn't the first governor to get stung by a computer contract. His predecessor, Republican Wilson, had three fiascoes, abandoning a $100 million child-support tracking system and a $51 million setup for the Department of Motor Vehicles. The state also lost millions in a contract dispute over software used by the California Lottery.
Record news services contributed to this report.
* To reach Capitol Bureau Chief Will Shuck, phone (916) 441-4078 or e-mail sacto@recordnet.com
Very refreshing to see a reporter who doesn't classify his and others opinions as news.
*****enter Drudge siren GIF here****
Gov. Gray Davis said Friday he's been working for weeks to rescind the contract, and that he continues to do so.
"In terms of the taxpayer, I'm determined to make it right for them. ... I'm as mad as anybody else," he said.
Welcome to the new morality, courtesy of the "bent one" and his fellow modern era libs. Its OK to do whatever you wish with no concern for morality or consequences. If you get caught, just declare how upset you are that "it happened" and ask for a do-over. Remeber clinton vis the campaign donations / White House sleep-over fiasco: "We need new CFR laws so I don't have to do these things, which really bother me a lot". Thanks to the libs in the mainstream, who weren't about to see their agenda derailed, clinton GOT AWAY WITH THIS ONE. Sadly, this soon became the SOP in Washington. Personal and political accountability vanished from the scene (at least for democrats).
Why of course it's slimy - Democrats are involved!
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Gives me hope that Davis won't find a way to spin out of the mess!
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