GRAY DAVIS IS NO SECOND COMING

Editor -- So Gray Davis thinks I voted for him because I was dazzled by his
vision for California? Do I have news for him! I recognized exactly what
Davis was as I figuratively held my nose in order to vote for him precisely
because he was not Dan Lungren.

My revulsion at Lungren's overt fascism forced me to overlook Davis'
support of the death penalty, his courtship of prison guards, his
unwillingness to take a firm position on medical cannabis and his implicit
refusal to recognize that many of California's educational woes are
directly related to the money we have foolishly deflected from schools and
poured into prisons.

His recent threat to veto long-overdue enabling legislation which would
finally allow implementation of medical cannabis, together with the
ludicrous breast-beating reported in The Chronicle (``Davis Says He Calls
All the Shots,'' July 21) are the final straw. It's about time he heard
from some of the people who voted for him just why we did so.

It wasn't because we saw him as some sort of Second Coming, and it
certainly wasn't because we had him confused with either Gov. Pete Wilson
or drug czar Barry McCaffrey, the two men he now seems most intent on
emulating.

Davis would do well to remember that medical marijuana was supported by 56
percent of a far bigger voter turnout than bothered to vote in his
gubernatorial election, and the concept has since been solidly endorsed in
several other states by even bigger margins.

TOM O'CONNELL, M.D.

San Mateo