Candidates Fight It Out in Shadow of Top Race

One candidate zoomed through his entire political career in just five years, rocketing from behind-the-scenes legislative aide to Assembly speaker. The other lost so many local elections he swore off politics for good--before changing his mind and entering the Legislature a dozen years ago.

Both were motivated to run for higher office by term limits, both say it might be their political career capper, and both have something larger to prove by becoming California’s lieutenant governor.

Electing relative newcomer Cruz Bustamante would make the Assembly Democrat the highest-ranking Latino in California, the first elected to statewide office since Romualdo Pacheco became lieutenant governor in 1871.

Victory for state Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Tahoe City) would prove--to himself and his supporters--that an election-year bout with a particularly lethal form of cancer is not a political death knell.

Polls have consistently shown Bustamante well ahead, but that gap closes when likely voters, who tend to be heavily Republican, are surveyed.

So, while gubernatorial candidates grab whatever campaign limelight is to be had, Leslie and Bustamante travel up and down California trying to persuade people that the understudy job is important, too.

Introducing Bustamante at a Fresno fund-raiser last week, Vice President Al Gore turned that quest for respect into a joke: “Don’t ever underestimate the importance of that second position!” he said.

Compared to other states where lieutenant governors share power with the governor, California has a constitutionally wimpy position. The job’s major duty is serving on panels for higher education and trade while waiting to run the state when the governor travels outside its boundaries.

Both Bustamante, 45, and Leslie, 56, promise to make the post into something more.

Referring to a trade mission to Mexico he organized as speaker, Bustamante says he would increase commerce with California’s southern neighbor. “We have two times the economy that Texas does and yet we have half the trade,” he said. “They’ve been eating our lunch.”

Leslie wants to focus on shifting remedial education out of state universities and into community colleges. “Taxpayers get the most bang for their buck at community colleges,” he said. “So why would you go to the universities to provide remedial ed?”

Bustamante is ahead in the fund-raising race, bringing in $1.1 million since January, nearly twice as much as Leslie.

Leslie has drawn money from Republican strongholds, such as developers and conservative political action committees, but also from Northern California interests, such as ski resorts and lumber companies.

One of his top backers is Fred Sacher, an Orange County developer who was a major contributor to Newt Gingrich’s political committee and one of the nation’s biggest contributors to the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s. Sacher has given Leslie $27,000 so far this year.

Bustamante’s campaign has been heavily financed by trade and teachers unions and has attracted some statewide Latino support. He also draws agricultural funds from the Central Valley and has consistently received Indian gaming money--more than $50,000 this year. He supports Proposition 5, the initiative that would grant more autonomy to Indian casinos.

At the top of each candidate’s campaign contributions list is a controversial developer.

For Bustamante, it is Sacramentan Angelo Tsakopoulos, a giant in Democrat fund-raising circles who was invited to a White House coffee. Tsakopoulos has given Bustamante nearly $100,000 since January.

The Times reported last year that Tsakopoulos told President Clinton about his fight with environmental regulators after building atop a wetland. After the meeting with Clinton, the Times reported, government pressure on Tsakopoulos waned.

Another developer with environmental skirmishes in his past is throwing his money behind the Republican. Alex Spanos, one of Gov. Pete Wilson’s major backers, infused Leslie’s campaign with $50,000 in July.

Spanos ran into problems a decade ago over a Stockton housing development near a hawk habitat. Critics charged that his contributions to Wilson muted the Department of Fish and Game’s efforts.

Leslie Navigates Choppy Waters

While Bustamante is buoyed by many large contributions, Leslie has had to patch together a number of smaller ones.

The $250 price tag on entry to Leslie’s fall fund-raiser at Lake Tahoe drew a group of friends to a cocktail cruise followed by dinner at a shoreline restaurant. But the wind picked up, the lake got choppy and the captain canceled the boat ride.

Rough waters that night could have been a metaphor for Leslie’s campaign in the early days. It began with cancer and continued through polls showing him trailing.

By the time of the doomed cruise, however, Leslie was heartened by polls calling the race a tossup.

Leslie got used to weathering political losses early on, beginning with a suburban Sacramento school board seat in 1971 and the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in 1980. Seriously in debt, with two teenage children, he vowed never again.

Four years later, Republicans begged him to run against a Republican assemblywoman who had switched her party affiliation to Democrat. Leslie ran and lost again, but when the incumbent decided not to seek reelection in 1986, Leslie finally won.

His legislative career progressed from the Assembly to the state Senate in 1991, landing him in the first class of legislators cut off by voter-approved term limits.

A few months after deciding to pursue the lieutenant governorship, Leslie found he had multiple myeloma, an often-fatal form of bone marrow cancer. He decided to run anyway, taking off just two months for chemotherapy and other treatment.

Leslie is upbeat as he enters the stage of his treatment where he returns to the doctor every six months for a biopsy. He has even made cancer a campaign theme, frequently mentioning his newfound respect for caregivers and publicizing visits with cancer patients.

Asked to name the piece of legislation that makes him proudest, Leslie cites his recent bill instituting tougher restrictions for young drivers--legislation that infuriated teenagers.

His most loyal supporters love his dedication to business. At the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort near Lake Tahoe, for instance, marketing director Greg Murtha had been trying for years to get the state Department of Transportation to erect a “Sugar Bowl” exit sign.

“I was just beside myself with frustration,” Murtha recalls. He contacted Leslie, who intervened with Caltrans and, voila!, the sign was approved.

While Leslie is strongly conservative, Bustamante is no wild-eyed liberal. He supports the death penalty and sided with the tobacco industry in a push to postpone California’s ban on smoking in bars out of sympathy for bar owners. He has angered environmentalists with votes that they labeled too pro-farmer.

His centrist positions, Bustamante says, make him ideally suited to be the first Latino elected to statewide office. The job-holder should not be “someone embroiled in radical, ethnic politics,” he said. “A person like me sets the stage for advancement of every group.”

But while he was Assembly speaker in 1997-98, Bustamante--immediately besieged by the media and fellow legislators for being too green and wishy-washy--failed to coalesce his colleagues around several important matters, including an overhaul of bilingual education.

In retrospect, some supporters of bilingual instruction say that his failure kindled the passage of Proposition 227 in June, aimed at virtually ending such teaching in California public schools.

Though the criticisms stung, Bustamante says that people misunderstood the difficulty of trying to rebuild a Democratic leadership structure after a year of Republican control.

A high point of his short Assembly career, he says, was getting more textbooks into public classrooms, which culminated this year in legislation that provides an additional $1 billion for books.

What lieutenant governors do depends greatly on what governors let them do, and in California, rapport between the two executive officers has been historically nil.

Bustamante’s dealings with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gray Davis reportedly have been strained during the campaign, but Bustamante insists that they are becoming comfortable with each other. He believes that he could have a working relationship with Republican nominee Dan Lungren, too, but says the two have not discussed it.

Leslie says Lungren has promised him a seat in Cabinet meetings--an unusual thing for a lieutenant governor--but he has had no contact with Davis.

“If I win,” he said, “he’ll be one of the first people I’ll talk to.”

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Cruz Bustamante

Bustamante decided to run for lieutenant governor after it became clear his short Assembly career would be ended by term limits. Though he faced some criticism for being indecisive during his 14-month stint as Assembly speaker, he says that critics did not appreciate the efforts he made to rebuild a Democratic leadership after a year of Republican control.

* Born: Jan. 4, 1953

* Residence: Fresno

* Education: Attended Fresno City College and Fresno State. Began an internship with Rep. B. F. Sisk in Washington, D.C., and dropped out of college to pursue political service.

* Career highlights: District representative for two Fresno Democrats, Rep. Rick Lehman and Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan. First elected to Bronzan’s seat in 1993. Became speaker of the Assembly in December 1996 and served 14 months.

* Interests: Wine, family barbecues, refinishing antiques.

* Family: Married to Arcelia; three daughters, ages 27, 18 and 5; two grandchildren, ages 7 and 1.

* Quote: “One thing I learned in Sacramento is there are some people who talk about things and others who just go do it. I just go do it.”

Tim Leslie

Leslie is running for lieutenant governor in the face of a certain end to his state Senate post in two years because of term limits. A strong conservative, he has spent much of the campaign courting more moderate voters. Though early polls showed him well behind his opponent, he has recently pulled dead even in surveys of likely voters.

* Born: Feb. 4, 1942

* Residence: Tahoe City

* Education: B.S., political science, Long Beach State. M.A., public administration, USC.

* Career highlights: Consultant to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, lobbyist for the County Supervisors Assn. of California and then a real estate agent. First elected to the Assembly in 1986 and to the state Senate in 1991.

* Interests: Golf, tennis, the Internet.

* Family: Married to Clydene; son, 31, daughter, 33; grandson, 2.

* Quote: “I’m going to use [the post] as a bully pulpit. If I believe we’re doing something wrong, I’m going to speak out on it. I’m expecting Dan Lungren to win, but if he doesn’t, I’ll be the one people will look to to hear the Republican line.”