The B-Team

HERE'S WHERE RECALL STANDS, heading into the final weekend:

* Arnold's on a bus and on the defensive over Gropergate ("I have sometimes behaved badly," he said yesterday. "I have been on rowdy movie sets and have done things I thought were playful but I have offended people. I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize.") We'll see if the 200 prying reporters in tow will let Arnold change the subject.

* Gray Davis is on the ropes, hoping to somehow reverse the perception that he's on his way out. Davis has spent so much time in voter-rich Southern California the past two weeks that some wags are calling his effort to save his job: "To Live and Die in L.A."

* As for Cruz Bustamante and Tom McClintock: They're on the outside looking in. Both are hoping for a last-minute surge should Davis and Schwarzenegger finish badly.

And what about the other 157 candidates who can get a vote next Tuesday? There are 135 names on the recall ballot, plus another 26 Californians who jumped in last week as write-in candidates, for a total of 161 choices. Some will do their best to get noticed in recall's waning hours. That includes two dozen obscure hopefuls who've chartered a bus and plan to birddog the Schwarzenegger caravan and try to meet the press whenever Team Arnold makes a pit stop. One of them is Jim Vandeventer. He's an openly gay Republican who once sold BMWs in Beverly Hills, plans to vote "no" on recall, and says he'll change his party affiliation after the election because he thinks the GOP lacks tolerance.

Time, space and your limited patience prevent us from offering a comprehensive rundown of the rest of the field. But here are a few candidates who didn't get their entire 15 minutes of recall fame:

Up in Smoke: Meet Ned Roscoe, a Libertarian party candidate whose family owns California's Cigarettes Cheaper! store chain. It's not Roscoe's first campaign--in 1998, his family tried to defeat Rob Reiner's Proposition 10, which imposed a 50-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund early childhood development programs. How did Roscoe wind up in the recall? His father figured that if every California smoker got behind one candidate, it could produce a winning plurality. "Since I was the big talker," the younger Roscoe says. "I got the job."

If elected, Roscoe wants a statewide grand jury to investigate government fraud. He says he'd eliminate 60,000 state jobs and ditch 10,000 "stupid" laws (to Roscoe, that's "minimum milk price regulations, cosmetic standards for plums, gasoline recipe laws, and others"). Souvenir collectors take note: Roscoe has a recall deck of cards (he's on all the aces and the king of hearts; Davis is the joker).

Search for Tomorrow: Garrett Gruener is a venture capitalist and co-founder of the Ask Jeeves Internet search engine. That means he has deep pockets (he's spent about $1 million of his own fortune on TVs ads and Web pop-ups) and, more than a passing interest in politics (he plans to keep his issues-heavy website (www.gg4g.com) running after the election).

Gruener's obsession is Proposition 13 and its allowances for commercial property. He also believes California should return to its spending levels of four years ago--in everything except for education--in order to reduce the coming deficit. As governor, he says he'd start a dialogue on the "structural gridlock" in Sacramento (over-protected incumbents), how term limits have failed the state, and why California is one of only a handful of states to require a two-thirds majority to enact a budget (next March's Budget Accountability proposal would end that, as well as the two-thirds requirement for tax increases).

Rich Men, "Poorman": Of the 26 write-in candidates, the only one approaching celebrity status is Jim "Poorman" Trenton, Rock Dees's radio sidekick. He's, like, totally gnarly, dude--a Republican (motto: "A Poor Man for a Poor State") who describes himself as a "total surfer," wants to legalize marijuana, prostitution, and gambling, and use the revenue from the aforementioned commodities to pay off the deficit.

Trenton is realistic about his chances ("If I can get 100 votes, it'll be like I won in a landslide"). But he knows how to work the system. California law allows candidates to provide an alternative name for voters (write-in hopefuls won't appear on the recall ballot, but polling places are required to provide their names to voters who request them). So if you can't remember "Trenton" on October 7, simply write-in "Poorman."