CAPITOL NOTEBOOK: IS A KISS JUST A KISS, WHEN IT'S POLITICAL?

Byline: Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber

`CAN you imagine?'' hissed a well-coifed member of the education elite to her colleague in the next seat.

``Are we in a new era or what?'' her seatmate whispered back.

The setting was Gov. Gray Davis' speech to the the state Board of Education last week, when he exhorted them - and everyone else in California - to raise their expectations.

He raised their eyebrows instead.

After his short speech, Davis moved around the table, shaking hands with each board member. When Davis reached the state superintendent of public instruction, our normally reserved governor planted a big kiss on Delaine Eastin's cheek.

Maybe it was because Eastin is whole-heartedly endorsing Davis' plan to rank every school in California in a massive Academic Performance Index. Maybe he found her tomboy haircut beguiling.

Or maybe the kiss marks a symbolic end to the superintendent's long exile in political Siberia.

The animosity between Eastin and former Gov. Pete Wilson was no secret. The Democratic superintendent and the Republican governor found little common ground, and Wilson appointed a state Board of Education that was outright hostile to Eastin.

This ill will seeped into Davis' Democratic administration. First, the new governor declared education his ``first, second and third priorities.'' Then, he snubbed Eastin in drawing up a reform plan.

Then came the kiss.

But those who witnessed it couldn't agree on its significance: Was it kiss and make up? Or was it the kiss of death?

Pension plans

When Davis addressed the Board of Education, the governor jokingly explained his rationale for his constant refrain that students must work harder and do better: ``This is a collective effort to raise their prospects, possibilities and performance - which, when we retire, we will greatly appreciate. When I retire, it will take two people in the work force to pay for my retirement - and I don't want some high-school dropouts assigned to me.''

Cruz control

It looks as if the hostility between the governor and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante hasn't subsided.

The two wrangled over the appeal of Proposition 187, followed immediately by an ugly incident where Bustamante's staff lost their parking spaces in the government garage.

The most recent incident occurred while Davis was out of the country and Bustamante was acting governor. While serving in that capacity, Bustamante signed a proclamation declaring a state of emergency due to wildfires. But it seems that there was glitch in the process - the necessary paperwork wasn't e-mailed down to Bustamante in Fresno until late in the day.

After Bustamante signed the proclamation, printed out on standard-sized paper, officials from the Office of Emergency Services said the document was not valid unless legal-sized paper was used. Bustamante spokesman Phil Garcia says the OES officials suggested that a California Highway Patrol officer drive from Sacramento - a 350-mile roundtrip - with the proper paper and some ceremonial pens.

While it may or may not have been necessary, the expensive and trivial trip wasn't likely to play well in the press.

Insiders from the Governor's Office lost no time in tattling about Bustamante's extravagance. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross said a source in the governor's camp fumed that ``it was a complete waste of the California Highway Patrol's time'' and ``the proclamation can be printed on a napkin or an envelope. . . .''

The California Republican Party lost no time in picking up on the brouhaha and faxed snippets of the column out to the Sacramento press corps declaring ``Bustamante Breaks Bank for Pen and Paper: Taxpayers pay for Wild Goose Chase.''