Hasta La Vista, Arnold?

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Squat, round and balding, Cruz Bustamante is the first to admit he's no swashbuckling political rock star. As lieutenant governor of California, he has duties that are largely ceremonial and unnoticed. Just before he was reelected last November, a poll showed that only 59% of California voters knew who he was, despite his six years in the state assembly and four years as lieutenant governor. But because of a quirk of electoral politics — and because no other Democrat wanted to take the plunge — Bustamante, 50, became the "just in case" candidate for his party in the current recall election. He is the party's pick if the Republican juggernaut succeeds in driving his unpopular boss, Governor Gray Davis, out of office. His main qualifications for the role seem to be a list of things he's not: he's not a millionaire, he's not a joke, and he's not Gray Davis.

And maybe that's enough. Late last week Bustamante stunned political observers by taking the lead in the highly respected Field poll. The new data showed he had the support of 25% of likely voters, vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 22%. True, there are seven weeks to go before the vote, campaigning has barely started and, after a federal judge's ruling last week on several counties' voting procedures, the election could be delayed until March. But Bustamante's strong showing reveals two things: voters are increasingly giving up on Davis, and a rump of California's Democrats is determined to hang on to the governorship. Field-poll figures showed 58% of likely voters support the recall motion against Davis, compared with 51% a month ago.

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For a candidate who came from nowhere, Bustamante has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. The grandson of Mexican immigrants, he grew up working on the farms of California's Central Valley, far from the centers of power in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He got into local politics after training to be a butcher and showed a talent for the meet-and-greet part of the trade. Whenever Senator Dianne Feinstein flew into the valley, Bustamante was there to meet her and take her to appointments. He still counts her as a powerful friend. Bustamante entered the state legislature in 1993 and, largely because term limits eliminated his rivals, he was named assembly speaker in 1996. When he was elected lieutenant governor two years later, he became the first statewide Latino official in more than 120 years.

"I love my culture, I love the music, and — look at me — I really love the food," the candidate told TIME last week. In Sacramento he is known as affable and competent, though not exactly a pacesetter. But Bustamante, who earned $117,513 in 2001, in contrast to Schwarzenegger's $26 million, is capitalizing on his low-key image and humble beginnings to appeal to the Democratic base and set himself apart from the wealthy Republicans he faces.

Bustamante is known for his opposition to Proposition 187, a ballot measure introduced under Republican Governor Pete Wilson in 1994 that would have denied public services to illegal immigrants. Though approved by voters, it was struck down by the courts. When Davis became Governor, he toyed with a way of adopting a watered-down version of the initiative, and Bustamante couldn't stop himself from criticizing his boss publicly. The fallout? Bustamante's parking spaces outside the Governor's office were taken away.

Today Bustamante dismisses the 1999 spat over parking spots as a "petty thing." But he cannot hide the enmity between himself and Davis, who tried hard to keep any other Democrat from entering the race. "I looked at the numbers, and it didn't look favorable for the Governor," Bustamante says. The recall "is a wake-up call — it will put all [the candidates] back on the table and see what they have to say."

What Bustamante has to say is politically simple. The threefold increase in the vehicle-license fee that Davis introduced should be repealed, he says — a smart move in an auto-reliant state, and one that will be hard for any other candidate to oppose.

To win, however, Bustamante needs the right kind of voters to turn out for him, especially the 32% of Californians who are Latino. Latinos are generally underrepresented at the polls. In last November's gubernatorial election, just 12% of voters were Latino. As the only major Latino candidate, Bustamante has a head start, but he is not guaranteed the loyalty of such voters. His origins in the conservative Central Valley place him to the right of many Latino Democrats. Apart from his opposition to Prop 187, "he has not been a strong champion of Latino issues," says Luis Arteaga, executive director of the nonpartisan Latino Issues Forum in San Francisco.