The Little Brown Reader

McClintock Sticks to Calif. Recall Race

They say, 'Don't you dare drop out, we need someone to believe in.'

Count me in on that group.

McClintock Sticks to Calif. Recall Race

By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writer

October 1, 2003, 9:36 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- With little more than a week left in California's recall race, Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to make his victory seem inevitable. But his more conservative Republican rival isn't going away.

State Sen. Tom McClintock has stuck firmly -- some say obstinately -- to his pledge to race to the end, even at the risk of splitting the Republican vote and allowing Democrats to stay in power even if Gov. Gray Davis is recalled.

"I have never been popular in the country club wing of the Republican party," McClintock said in an interview Sunday before another full day of campaigning. "I've always drawn my strength from grassroots voters, and I'm quite content with that."

The pressure on McClintock to drop out and throw his votes to Schwarzenegger -- a political rookie whose moderate views are shared by many Democrats -- has been intense. Most high-level GOP endorsements have gone to Schwarzenegger, who has led McClintock in every poll, and Republican strategists warn that his career could suffer if he stays in.

But McClintock, a 47-year-old career politician who has earned his conservative credentials during almost 17 years in the state Legislature, refuses to bow to critics who call him the Ralph Nader of the Republican Party, referring to the Green Party's 2000 presidential candidate widely asserted to have received votes that otherwise would have gone to Democrat Al Gore.

McClintock prefers to compare himself to Seabiscuit -- the scrappy California race horse who outran the establishment. He said he believes millions of voters will embrace his anti-tax, anti-abortion, pro-gun philosophy.

"I believe in the final days of the campaign we'll see a lot of voters who prefer me but doubt I can win coming back in droves," McClintock said. "The crowds have been phenomenal. They say, 'Don't you dare drop out, we need someone to believe in.'"

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