SACRAMENTO - It looks like California's well known Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may soon get to know intimately what the phrase "Those that live by the sword, die by the sword" means.

It seems that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, whose union members are still upset over Schwarzenegger's decision to not grant them a raise this year, are contemplating launching a recall campaign against the celebrity governor.

That Schwarzenegger could be the target of a recall campaign is a concept thick with irony as that's how he came to power in 2003 when voters pitched then Gov. Gray Davis from office.

CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran didn't deny that a recall was being discussed by the union's leadership when contacted by the San Francisco Chronicle in this column.

"I can't comment other than to say we are taking a very hard look at it," Corcoran said.

The union, which has been a political player in Sacramento for some time, has the cash to sponsor such an effort, too. Within just the first nine months of this year the CCPOA donated more than $600,000 to state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata's all- purpose political action committee, Leadership California, records show.

And although most observers doubt the union will go for the recall, they acknowledge the CCPOA is considering the political doomsday move at just the right time. Schwarzenegger's popularity polling shows him hovering in the low 30 percent range, the paper reported.

Moreover, the governor alienated his own Republican base this year by proposing a three-year, 1-cent sales-tax hike to help close the state's whopping $17 billion budget deficit.