The North County man who bankrolled the recall petition drive praised Tuesday's court decision reinstating the Oct. 7 election, but said voters should vote no on the recall if both major GOP candidates remain in the race.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who spent $1.7 million of his personal fortune on the early summer signature-gathering campaign, once insisted that Gov. Gray Davis had to go because he led the state into a severe, unprecedented budget crisis. But now he is advising voters to consider marking no on their ballots when they go to the polls next month.

Political analysts said Issa's about-face has more to do with persuading one of the two major Republican candidates to exit the race so the party has a better chance of capturing the governorship. But Democrats said it appeared that the car-alarm magnate was having second thoughts about the way the recall was turning out.

In any event, it was another day filled with significant new developments in the historic recall attempt aimed at California's embattled Democratic governor.

"This has been the most tumultuous race I have ever witnessed in my life," said Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego. "Every day there is not just a new twist, but a new upheaval."

In an interview, Issa said he was recommending that people vote to keep Davis in office, if both Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks continue to run for governor. Issa said he wants to avoid splitting the GOP vote and delivering the Statehouse to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only major Democratic replacement candidate.

Issa said he sees Bustamante as an even worse alternative than the unpopular Davis.

However, neither the actor nor the state senator have shown any willingness to get out of the way.

Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College near Los Angeles, termed the development "another irony in a strange election. But this is Darrell Issa's version of tough love. He's trying to whack the Republican Party into unity. It's just his way of pressuring one of the Republicans, probably McClintock, to bow out."

Perhaps Issa is growing concerned, Pitney said, knowing that hundreds of thousands of people already are voting absentee and the Republicans in the bunch are divided between Schwarzenegger and McClintock.

But leading Democrats said the about-face also hinted that Issa was growing frustrated with the direction the recall is taking.

"It shows how little he thought out the consequences of launching a recall," Kehoe said.

"He is the Capt. Chaos of California," said Peter Ragone, spokesman for the Californians Against the Costly Recall committee controlled by Davis. "First he puts the state through the ringer for $70 million. Now he is against the recall. Well, welcome to the 'No on Recall' campaign."

Issa said the recall election can be won by a Republican, but only if there is one major candidate.

He referred to this week's new Public Policy Institute of California poll, which showed Bustamante leading Schwarzenegger 28 percent to 26 percent, with McClintock coming in a distant third at 14 percent.

The poll said 53 percent of likely voters intend to vote to recall Davis.

"This is one election that I'm proud to say is about a single issue: The economic vitality of this state," Issa said.

He said he considers both the actor and state senator to be pro-business candidates who would deliver a brighter future to California. But Issa said the Golden State would be worse off under Bustamante because of his plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, cigarettes, alcohol and business.

"He's going to raise their taxes and call it 'Tough Love,'" Issa said.

On Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans alike resigned themselves to getting on with an election that is now less than two weeks away.

Jenny Oropeza, chairwoman of the powerful Assembly Budget Committee and D-Long Beach, said, "I remain opposed to the recall election and urge everyone to vote no. It's bad precedent, bad policy and bad politics."

But Oropeza said with more than 500,000 people having cast absentee ballots and tens of millions of dollars already spent by state and county elections officials, the election should go on.

"Let's get on with it: No on the recall; yes on Bustamante," she said.

Let's just make sure every vote is counted, she said.

Assemblywoman Pat Bates, R-Oceanside, said she is also concern about counting votes.

"I support the court's decision to stay the recall election; however, we must ensure our voters are not disenfranchised," Bates said. "I hope that proper mechanisms are implemented in order to ensure that everyone's vote counts. It is the very foundation of our system."

From the perspective of counting, the court's decision is practical, Pitney said.

"While it was argued that 40,000 people's votes could have been hung up on hanging chads, as a practical matter hundreds of thousands of absentee votes would not have been counted had the election been postponed," he said. "Once the election was under way it was probably a wise decision to let it go forward."

The decision came as no surprise to Issa.

"The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) never had a case," Issa said. "They brought this on behalf of Gray Davis."

Legal experts were not surprised when the ACLU opted not to appeal the 11-0 ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Peter Keane, dean of the Golden Gate University Law School in San Francisco, said the chances the highest court in the land would weigh in on the matter was "absolutely zero --- no matter who won. The Supreme Court does not want to get back into the swamp of Bush v. Gore."

That was the controversial, convoluted decision that ended the Florida recount in 2000 and effectively handed the presidency to George Bush.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-3529 or ddowney@nctimes.com.