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In California today, Lt. Governor Gray Davis won the Democratic nomination for governor in the most expensive primary in history. Ironically, Davis spent the least money in advertisements and commercials of all the candidates. The NewsHour has the report and Elizabeth Farnsworth discusses the poll results with a panel.

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GRAY DAVIS, (D) Gubernatorial Nominee: This is truly an experience money can't buy.

SPENCER MICHELS: The wildly expensive Democratic primary for governor of California was won handily by Gray Davis, the current lieutenant governor who spent the least money. Davis captured 35 percent of all votes cast, outpolling Republican rival, Dan Lungren, with 33 percent, and easily defeating his two Democratic opponents, Al Checchi, with 13 percent, and Jane Harman with 12. Davis was the only one of the three major Democratic candidates who had to raise all the money for his campaign, about $12 million. His relatively small bankroll made him an underdog for a time.

GRAY DAVIS: Californians today you divide the experts, you've proved the pundits wrong, and, you know what, I think we're going to win again in November!

SPENCER MICHELS: Checchi, the wealthy former CEO of Northwest Airlines, spent about $40 million of his own on the campaign. Early on, he had been leading in the polls on the strength of his ads, but his lead evaporated, and last night, he conceded defeat.

AL CHECCHI: Lieutenant Governor Gray Davis and I have just spoken. He has my support, my endorsement, and I encourage all of you to work as hard for him as you did for me these many, many months.

SPENCER MICHELS: Third place finisher Los Angeles Congresswoman Jane Harman's campaign was bankrolled to the tune of $20 million, largely by her husband, and electronics entrepreneur. She loses here congressional seat, but she said she isn't through.

JANE HARMAN: I've had many chapters in my professional life, as you all know, and this one will not be the last.

SPENCER MICHELS: Nearly 40 percent of eligible California voters went to the polls yesterday, fairly low for a primary election but higher than four years ago. It was the first time Californians could vote for any candidate, regardless of party, in what is called a blanket primary. Californians also voted on several propositions. They approved Proposition 227, which ends most bilingual education in the states, a measure which won 61 percent support, sets up instead a year of English-only instruction for non-English speaking children.

SPOKESPERSON: We can count on a "no" vote, right?

SPENCER MICHELS: In a much closer vote Californians turned down Proposition 226, which would have forbidden unions from using their members' dues for political purposes without annual permission. The vote was 54 percent against, 46 in favor. Labor spent $20 million to successfully fight the measure, which was sponsored and bankrolled by conservative forces. In Orange County, voters sent former Republican Congressman Bob Dornan into a rerun with Democratic Representative Loretta Sanchez, who beat him in 1996, in an election Dornan claimed was marked by illegal registration of non-citizens. After an investigation, Congress declined to overturn that election. And in Oakland, largely a minority city, former California Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate Jerry Brown got back into politics by sweeping aside 10 opponents and winning the mayor's race, without the need for a runoff. He captured 59 percent of the vote.

JERRY BROWN, Mayor Elect, Oakland: Thanks a lot for making a grassroots, small donor fund-raising no professional consultants, one message to all the people trying to campaign work for Oakland. Oakland is first. Give yourselves a round of applause.

SPENCER MICHELS: Brown's low-cost campaign was in high contrast to the statewide governors' race, the most expensive primary in history.

JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, some analysis of yesterday's results. We get it from Mark DiCamillo, the Director of the Field Institute, an independent, non-partisan, public opinion news service, and George Skelton, political columnist with the Los Angeles Times. Mark, this was the most expensive primary in history but the guy who spent the least won. Why? MARK DiCAMILLO, Field Institute: Well, it was one of those ones for the textbooks, I think. We saw that Jane Harman and Al Checchi performed the poorest, and that their moneys just didn't translate into votes. I think voters in this election cycle really were looking for some level of comfort. Things in California are going pretty well right now. I think voters really just didn't want to rock the boat, and they went with known commodities up and down the ballot.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And George Skelton, you've been analyzing the exit polls that the LA Times did. What did the polls say about why this happened?

GEORGE SKELTON, Los Angeles Times: Gray Davis won among everybody. He won among Democrats, Republicans, Independents, even though we had the first open primary in the state's history. He won, because he's not a very exciting person, and people were not looking for exciting change. Two thirds of our exit poll voters said that the state's moving in the right direction, and so they weren't in the mood for somebody from-who had been a CEO and rarely ever voted even-come in and shake up state government-the second largest government in the nation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, George, how important were the negative ads in the defeat of Mr. Checchi?

GEORGE SKELTON: Well, our exit poll didn't get into that, but our previous polls show that the more people saw Mr. Checchi's negative ads, the less they liked them. I think he probably spent about $60 a vote. And the more he spent, the further he fell in the polls.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How important do you think the negative ads were? What did your polls show?

MARK DiCAMILLO: Well, there clearly was some overkill that happened in the latter stages of the campaign. We were measuring Checchi's ads in both March and April, and we saw a big change in public attitudes in that interim. Most voters in April perceived Checchi's ads as being unfair to his opponents. They weren't saying that in March. I think as voters got more and more ads thrown at them and I think as more the kind of collective consciousness of California before aware that the ads were pretty negative in their tone I think that was the main story line of the first debate that the opponents to Checchi had an opportunity to respond directly to the ads that he had been airing. Voters got a lot of that feedback through intermediary sources after the first debate, I think. That first debate was a disaster for Checchi, and we saw his poll numbers decline pretty dramatically after that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mark, in general, self-financed campaigns at the high levels of California government, people running for high office, people haven't done very well when they financed their own campaign. Why?

MARK DiCAMILLO: Well, I think the public has a certain degree of skepticism when someone who's very wealthy goes right for the top brass ring, they're going for governor, rather than working their way up. Certainly, self-financed candidates have had a lot of success in running for Congress, running for the assembly, and running for lesser constitutional office races, but when you get to the top of the ticket, the one that's got the spotlight thrown at you, I think the public becomes more skeptical and really starts to listen to the feedback that the media is giving and to their trusted news sources as to what's going on in the campaign. And I think that gets flung back at the self-financed candidates and they tend not to do so well.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: George Skelton, do you have anything to add to that?

GEORGE SKELTON: Well, I would just say that this is not the year of anti-politician when things are going so well. Our exit polls show that people voted for Gray Davis because of his experience. He was a comfortable old shoe who had been around the state and three different statewide elections in the past had been elected.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, George, what other lessons do you think can be drawn from this election? What does it all add up to now-thinking of the gubernatorial race in particular?

GEORGE SKELTON: Well, if you're a campaign consultant, I suppose the lesson is that it's not how much money you have, it's how you spend it. Gray Davis husbanded his money, saved it until the last, and spent it very effectively with real good positive ads, but when he didn't have negative ads at Checchi, he hit him real hard, and it worked. I mean, actually what happened here was that Checchi ran negative ads on Jane Harman, knocked her down, and then when Gray Davis went up, Checchi started running negative ads on Gray Davis, and the voters said, wait a minute, this guy is attacking everybody, and they turned back to Gray Davis. I mean, that's really the campaign in a nutshell.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Until the victory of-with the victory of Prop 227, California, becomes the first state that will require all students to learn in English. Explain how this happened?

MARK DiCAMILLO: Well, I think voters in this election really were casting a ballot in favor of English, rather than really discussing the merits of which system would be better in teaching students. I think this is reminiscent of a proposition back in 1986 in which voters were asked to declare English as the official language of California. That passed by a 70/30 margin. Here we have this passing by a somewhat lower margin, but in both cases the white non-Hispanic vote, the Republican vote strongly on the yes side carrying us through.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But the Hispanic vote did change during the period of the campaign, didn't it, George?

GEORGE SKELTON: Yes. Latinos voted overwhelmingly against this proposition by at least three to two.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's what your exit polls are showing?

GEORGE SKELTON: Yes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Even though the early polling showed that they were for it?

GEORGE SKELTON: Right. Latinos have a habit of being for some proposition like they were, the 187, the illegal immigrant proposition, right up and even Proposition 209 was against affirmative action, right up until the end, and then they switch over. I'm not sure why it is. It might be some ethnic pride in the end, but they-then they go overwhelmingly against it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: George, a coalition of opponents are-have gone to a federal court to ask for a temporary restraining order. What are the chances that they'll get one, do you think?

GEORGE SKELTON: Well, I'm not a lawyer, let alone a judge, but the way things seem to happen in California, they'll get one, they'll shop for the right judge, and this-there will be a stay for a while, I would predict.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mark, what do you think the national implications are of this proposition and this vote?

MARK DiCAMILLO: Well, it's another social issue that Californians are asked to cast a controversial ballot on, and it's the third in succession that have been successful, so I think that might have a certain implication. The government in the state has been in favor of all of those propositions, and I think it does have some political overtones for the Republican Party.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now on Prop 226, which as Spencer reported would have made it necessary for union leaders to get permission from their members before they made donations to political campaigns, what are the implications of this vote and why did it happen?

MARK DiCAMILLO: Well, this was a vote that really turned on partisan issues. I think as voters learned more about what the initiative was, it was a very tame-sounding initiative in its-in the reading of it-in the first reading. And so in our initial polls it was highly supported by Democrats, by Republicans, by union members, by non-union members, but as we got closer to the election, Democrats moved strongly against it. They saw this as being against their own interests, and Republicans held in their support, so it became a battle royale between the two parties, and the Democrats, I think with a bigger turnout in this election, really carried the day.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And George Skelton, do you have anything to add to that?

GEORGE SKELTON: Well, I would just say I think the voters have a strong sense of fairness, and they saw that the big business would get the upper hand perhaps here in campaign contributions, tilt the playing field to the right, and, to borrow a foreign policy term, they saw that as destabilizing and wanted to keep the status quo.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: George, did having this proposition, which did bring a lot of the union members to vote, having it on the ballot help Gray Davis?

GEORGE SKELTON: Certainly it did. As it turned out, he didn't need that much help. But I would say that during the campaign it probably helped him most by giving him more confidence, because he knew that this labor vote would turn out on election day and help him in a close election, turned out not to be close, but I think it's one of the things that kept him going.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally, is Jerry Brown back, Mark?

MARK DiCAMILLO: While this represents the resurrection of Jerry Brown, at least politically here in California, it's interesting, I think, now that the bay area has two very nationally prominent mayors in Willie Brown and Jerry Brown, both sharing the same last name, I guess we're now going to be just calling them Jerry and Willie. But it really is an interesting political development, and I also think it's ironic that Gray Davis, who used to be the chief of staff under the Jerry Brown administration, is the Democratic candidate for governor.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: George Skelton, you've been watching Jerry Brown for a long time. What's your take on his victory?

GEORGE SKELTON: I don't think he does potholes, and I see him running for president as soon as he can.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thank you both very much for being with us.

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