CARRYING HER HUSBAND'S MESSAGE WIFE OF REPUBLICAN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE ADDRESSES RWF LUNCHEON.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - As her husband's campaign against Gov. Gray Davis nears the last lap, Cindy Simon appeared with the California Republican Party's vice chairman at a luncheon of the Palmdale Republican Women Federated.

Cindy Simon asked the grass-roots group to send its members out to talk with friends, family and co-workers to urge them to vote for her husband, Bill, and other Republicans.

``He is a good man, a very good man, and he will make us a great governor,'' Cindy Simon of her husband. ``Gray Davis hasn't given us Californians one good reason to get out of bed on Nov. 5 and go out to vote for him at the polls.''

Cindy Simon, who was a Wall Street brokerage firm vice president before they married, had been invited to speak to the group when she met its president at her husband's fund-raiser in Lancaster last summer.

``She said she would try,'' Palmdale Republican Woman Federation Catherine Tedeski said. ``We didn't know until the last minute she was coming.''

After the speech, Tedeski added: ``We need to get her husband elected and no more Gray Davis.''

Bill Back, the California Republican Party vice chairman, told the women's group that convincing Republicans and independents or others likely to support their candidates to vote will be the key to the election.

``This election hinges on voter turnout,'' Back said. ``It's going to be a low-turnout election. The party that does the best job of turning out its base will win the election.''

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(color) Cindy Simon talks up husband - and Republican candidate for governor - Bill Simon at the RWF luncheon.

Charles F. Bostwick/Daily News