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SACRAMENTO — After months of struggling to keep the lights on and his political fortunes intact, Gov. Gray Davis’s re-election committee is launching a statewide radio advertising campaign. 

The election is more than a year away, but the 58-year-old first-term Democrat is already tapping his deep campaign treasury to launch a $150,000-a-week, statewide radio ad next week. He has also set up a campaign Web site. 

“It seems very early for a governor to be involved in a re-election campaign, but this has been a very unusual period of time for Californians,” said Mark Baldassare, a pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. 

Republicans have attacked Davis for his handling of the power crisis and are awaiting word on whether former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan – considered the most formidable GOP foe on the horizon – will run for governor. 

Riordan has said he’ll decide by September if he will take on Davis. State and national Republicans, including President Bush, have encouraged him to run. 

So far, two Republicans have gotten into the race: California Secretary of State Bill Jones and millionaire businessman William E. Simon Jr., whose father was treasury secretary in the Ford and Nixon administrations. 

Davis’ chief campaign consultant Garry South unveiled the statewide radio campaign on Friday. 

The 60-second spot features Davis calmly thanking residents for conserving energy and explaining his plan to remedy the power crunch, including the licensing of 16 new power plants since he took office. 

“We’re making progress, but we are not out of the woods yet,” Davis says in the advertisement, which is being financed by the Governor Gray Davis Committee. 

The ad will be played in all of the state’s major media markets, South said, including San Francisco, Sacramento, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno and San Diego. The committee plans to run radio spots for at least two months, but may change the message, South said. 

Meanwhile, his campaign Web site features a photo of Davis next to actor Martin Sheen, who plays a liberal Democratic president on NBC’s “The West Wing.” The site also lists Davis’ accomplishments and contains links to “tips on saving energy.” 

Davis’ approval ratings plummeted amid the power crisis to their lowest level since he took office. A Field Institute poll in May found that 42 percent approved of his job performance, while 49 percent disapproved. In January, the governor’s approval rating was 60 percent. 

An attack-ad campaign against Davis began in June, credited to a group called the American Taxpayers Alliance but produced by GOP strategists and paid for by electricity generators. It criticizes Davis for failing to secure long-term, cost-saving contracts before wholesale prices soared. 

Davis’ opponents have said he acted too late in the power crunch, failing to prevent soaring electricity prices and six days of rolling blackouts since January. 

“His inattention to duty, inaction and lack of leadership has unnecessarily caused much of the economic turmoil our state faces today,” Jones said last month. 

Determined to shed the negative image that can come with self-financing campaigns, Simon’s aides announced late last month that he had raised more than $2 million in fund-raisers in New York City and Los Angeles. 

Figures were not available Friday morning for the Jones’ campaign. 

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On the Net: 

Davis’ campaign Web site: http://www.gray-davis.com