EX-GOVERNORS WEIGH IN ON RECALL.

Byline: John Canalis Staff Writer

Jerry Brown, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson - three of the four still-living men who have held the job Gov. Gray Davis is fighting to keep - were certainly on the ropes during the two terms each spent in office.

But, in the words of Brown, ``Nothing compares.''

``It's what I call 'Davis versus Goliath,''' he said in a telephone interview last week.

Each of Davis' predecessors did something Davis may not: complete two terms. And they survived rumors of recalls mostly because they remained rumors.

``When I was governor, there were times when somebody would say, we ought to recall the governor, but nothing ever materialized or went forward with it,'' Deukmejian said, also in a telephone interview.

Deukmejian said he believed this recall effort had gotten as far as it had because of the willingness of congressman Darrell Issa, R-Vista, to spend $1.7 million of his personal fortune on the effort.

California's former governors are, as expected, taking decidedly different positions on the state's latest political earthquake.

Brown, 65, who served from 1975 to 1983 and is now mayor of Oakland, is against the recall and squarely behind Davis, who served as his chief of staff when Brown held the governor's office.

Deukmejian, 75, who returned to practicing law after serving in office from 1983 to 1991, is observing the race and weighing endorsement requests from his home in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach.

Wilson, 70, Davis' predecessor from 1991 to 1998, is putting his muscle behind the muscle, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a campaign adviser. (Wilson did not return several calls to Schwarzenegger's campaign team seeking comment.)

A representative for former President Ronald Reagan, the fourth living governor, said the office did not have an official statement regarding the recall campaign. (Reagan has been debilitated with Alzheimer's disease for several years.)

Though it is clear whom Wilson and Brown support in the Oct. 7 election, Deukmejian, a Republican known for methodically thinking through his decisions, was not ready to say.

``I am going to take a wait-and-see attitude for awhile, let a month go by, and let things shake out a bit,'' he said. ``For the time being, I am going to sit tight and be an observer.''

In the last gubernatorial election, Deukmejian worked for former Secretary of State Bill Jones, who lost in the primary to businessman Bill Simon.

Deukmejian said he had requests for endorsements from Republican candidates and was weighing them.

This time, Wilson is the one working for a candidate, but his public comments have been limited, preferring to let the spotlight fall on Schwarzenegger.

When asked if he felt bad for Davis, Deukmejian did not respond, but he did offer this:

``Obviously, it's a very distracting experience for a sitting governor, particularly at this time in the legislative process, where the Legislature is going into its last month of the session, and they generally pass and send to the governor 1,000 bills he has to deal with in a 30-day time span. It's one of the busiest times.''

Brown is from a strong line of Democrats - his late father, Pat Brown, was also governor for two terms - so it's little surprise to see him offering his support to Davis.

``I am certainly wishing him well, but he's out there all by himself,'' Brown said.

Any advice?

``I would take several days off and do some serious soul searching,'' Brown said, adding that he would assemble a team of the best minds at his disposal to help him decide his next step.

``He has to be utterly fearless.''

And what would Duke do?

Davis needs to ``acknowledge with specificity the mistakes that he said that he made,'' Deukmejian said.

``He has made a passing reference to mistakes, but he hasn't acknowledged them specifically,'' he said, speaking of the televised address Davis made at UCLA last week. ``I think he needs to tell the people what he is going to do different if the recall is turned back.''

John Canalis, [phone]

john.canalis(at)presstelegram.com