LOS ANGELES -- California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante may not have lucked into movie-star looks, but his political career has been blessed with good timing and a knack for seizing the moment.

The U.S. news media have trained their lenses and boom mikes on photogenic actor Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for the Oct. 7 California recall election, but Mr. Bustamante's bid to become the state's first Latino governor in more than a century has been gathering speed.

The Democrat has picked up a number of significant endorsements, including the backing of his party's state congressional delegation and the powerful California Teachers Association.

And in a dramatic reversal that befits an election with more than subtle Hollywood overtones, Mr. Bustamante awoke yesterday morning to praise from his embattled archrival, Governor Gray Davis.

Suddenly, it is looking more possible that California, a state that is roughly 30 per cent Hispanic, could elect its first Latino governor since Romualdo Pacheco served nine months in the post in 1875.

The son of a barber, Mr. Bustamante got his break in politics in 1972 when his father heard of a congressman who needed a summer intern. Mr. Bustamante, 19 at the time, quit his job at a Fresno fertilizer company, drove across the United States and spent the summer on Capitol Hill answering constituent mail in a basement office.

"I remember about halfway through thinking, 'You know, this government thing, you can really help a lot of people,' " Mr. Bustamante told The New York Times this week. "And it just sort of turned on. It was a light bulb. It was kind of everything that I was thinking about, but not really knowing where I was headed."

Mr. Bustamante's career in politics hasn't been directionless, but it has been characterized by being in the right place at the right time. He entered the California State Assembly in 1993 as a representative for Fresno, but he had to be convinced by retiring assemblyman Bruce Broznan to run for his seat.

After deliberating, he ran and won, and eventually became the state's first Latino assembly Speaker in 1997. He later won two terms as lieutenant governor, an elected post.

Now he is suddenly in the thick of the recall vote, a short campaign that has already taken several shifts in his favour.

Mr. Davis, who can only retain the governorship if he wins majority support on the question of a recall, is leaking oil with a 30-per-cent approval rating and can hardly afford to alienate the supporters of his party rival.

"I've said repeatedly that Cruz Bustamante is a good and decent person. I like him personally," Mr. Davis told reporters yesterday.

But as the sole Democrat in a position to challenge for the governorship if voters choose to recall Mr. Davis, Mr. Bustamante also poses a significant threat to Mr. Schwarzenegger, who must overcome a fragmented Republican effort that features a trio of viable candidates who might chip away at his support: Peter Ueberroth, Bill Simon and Tom McClintock, candidates whose positions on social policy hew closer to traditional Republican lines than those of the famous actor.

However, one place Mr. Bustamante is unlikely to challenge either man is in front of a television camera. Unlike the muscled Mr. Schwarzenegger and the slickly coiffed Mr. Davis, the Lieutenant Governor is a throwback to the days before media image was imperative.

"I am short, I am overweight and I am losing all my hair," Mr. Bustamante himself has lamented to school groups.

Yet in a state with more than 30 million residents and a whopping $38-billion (U.S.) budget deficit, Mr. Bustamante has raised the most eyebrows with his economic platform, a risky set of policy statements that include a series of tax increases. Mr. Schwarzenegger, by contrast, has offered few details about his plans.

The actor also has his work cut out for him with Hispanic voters. Several members of Mr. Schwarzenegger's political team worked with former governor Pete Wilson during the passage of the controversial Proposition 187, an anti-immigration policy that enraged many new Californians and could swing even more Latino support behind Mr. Bustamante, the grandson of Mexican settlers.

But the Lieutenant Governor has his own issues to deal with, especially the legacy of a racial slur he reportedly uttered at a Black History Month event in 2001. He has also been criticized for accepting financial contributions from Indian tribes who are pushing for an increase in legalized gambling in California.

Much of his struggle is to overcome the perception of him as bland, even within the Latino community.

Mexican fast-food chain Taco Bell, for instance, is holding its own version of a political poll by assigning different menu items to the various candidates -- beef crunchy taco purchases are being logged as votes for Mr. Schwarzenegger, while chicken soft tacos represent a vote for Mr. Davis.

But the Taco Bell pollsters lumped Mr. Bustamante in with the 134 minor candidates running in the campaign, under the item known as "grilled stuffed burrito."