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California Recallperstar candidate was more powerfulthan the words. For those of us workingin television news, this triumph ofthe visual is always a source of frustrationwhen we’re up against politiciansand others skilled at manipulating themedium. When we’d try to writethoughtful words about the issuesraised in the campaign, it often felt likethose words were drowned out by thehoopla. His campaign anthem, “We’reNot Gonna Take It” reflected the angrymood of voters who wanted change inSacramento and looked atSchwarzenegger as the action hero whowas going to deliver that change.In the end, it was clear that thevoters didn’t want to see televisionstories or read newspaper articles aboutwhether the candidate was short onanswers to the state’s fiscal crisis orwhether he misbehaved aroundwomen. As reporters, when we did tryto focus on issues, we felt as though wewere doing such pieces for one another,because the general public hadall but tuned out when it came to thatkind of news coverage. Even so, we feltobligated to pursue the truth and triednot to allow our frustrations to poisonthe fairness or integrity of our reporting.Schwarzenegger’s star power is nowinfluencing how television covers statepolitics in California. An unprecedentednumber of media outlets covered hisinauguration at the state Capitol andnow, in what some see as a positiveimpact of “the Schwarzenegger effect,”local stations that closed their Sacramentobureaus during the 1980’s arereopening them as GovernorSchwarzenegger takes over. The showmust go on. ■Cecilia Alvear, a 1989 Nieman Fellow,is an NBC News producer.George Lewis is an NBC News correspondent.Both covered the Californiarecall election full time.alvear@aol.comWATCHDOGTracking Money in the California Recall Election‘Newspapers miss a major element of campaign coverage if they giveshort shrift to campaign money.’By Dan MorainCalifornia’s first recall of a sittinggovernor was a populist uprisingof historic proportions, anend to politics as usual, and a purgingof political insiders. Or so it was said.Campaign donors must not have beentold.In a campaign that lasted 77 daysand ousted Governor Gray Davis, thecandidates who vied to replace him,political parties, and moneyed interestsoperating independent campaignsfor and against the candidates, raisedand spent between $75 million and$80 million. All the major interestschipped in: businesses, lawyers,unions, wealthy political patrons, Indiantribes that own casinos, and more.The recall was supposed to be different.It wasn’t. Money was a definingissue, like it is in all campaigns.“This is business as usual, as far as Ican tell,” Democratic campaign consultantBill Carrick told the Los AngelesTimes after the election. Added politicalscience professor Gary Jacobson, acampaign finance expert at the Universityof California, San Diego, “You canhave a popular revolt—if you can findten’s of millions of dollars.”The million-dollar-a-day-campaignunderscored several truths aboutmoney in politics. Six- and seven-figurechecks were common even thoughthe recall was the first statewide campaignin California in which there werecontribution restrictions. Proposition34, drafted by legislators and approvedby the state’s voters in 2000, purportedlybarred individual donors from givingmore than $21,200 to a single candidate.As quickly became apparent, however,money seeps in, while laws limitingdonations can make money moredifficult for the public and press totrack. Additionally, if moneyed interestsare restricted from giving largesums directly to candidates, they canform independent committees andspend unlimited sums for and againstcandidates. Unlike candidates whomust answer to the voting public abouttheir tactics, operators of independentcampaigns are all but unfettered.“No matter what campaign financescheme you come up with, money isalways going to play a role,” said Sacramentolobbyist Scott Lay, who createda Web page to track money raised forthe recall. “Moneyed interests will finda way to speak out.”Reporting on the MoneyHere’s another truth: Newspapers missa major element of campaign coverageif they give short shrift to campaignmoney. My editors at the Los AngelesTimes assigned veteran reporter JeffRabin, Joel Rubin and me, plus researcherMaloy Moore and editor LindaRogers, to track fundraising and spendingin the recall. Rabin has focused onmoney in Los Angeles politics for years.I have covered money in politics as partof my assignments for the 10 years Ihave been in the Times’s Capitol bu-Nieman Reports / Winter 2003 61