Former chief of staff Pat Clarey and former communications director Rob Stutzman, who left in the wake of the governor’s “Year of Reform” special election debacle, have landed at the California Republican Party. Both will be consultants to the party, Clarey on management and administrative matters, Stutzman on communications and politics.
Clarey took a leave of absence from the governor’s office to manage the campaign for his four failed initiatives in last November’s election. She returned briefly to her post as chief of staff after the election, but left after controversial Democrat Susan Kennedy was hired, saying she had always planned to return to the private sector at the end of the year. Stutzman, also a “Year of Reform” honcho, worked for the Republican Party before joining Schwarzenegger’s campaign, so this is a return. It had always been reported that he would join Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign; at least one publication reported that he would manage the Schwarzenegger campaign. But D.C. operative Steve Schmidt has been brought in for that and Bush strategist Matthew Dowd replaced Stutzman and Clarey’s ally, Mike Murphy, as Arnold’s chief strategist. As previously reported here, Schwarzenegger has a new core group.
And now for something completely different. Democrats. Running for governor. Yes, the rumors are true. There are Democrats running for governor of California. They’ve amassed huge amounts of money. $24 million for state Controller Steve Westly, the ex-eBay exec, something under $20 million for Treasurer Phil Angelides, the frontrunner. They even lead in the polls.
Not that you’d know it particularly, unless you were paying especially close attention to politics. Which after five straight years of major crises and statewide elections, many Californians are more than happy not to do before the next big showdown. Besides, the ongoing soap opera of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s morphing back into a centrist after his disastrous “Year of Reform” — one old friend calls it a “lurch” — has drawn the spotlight.
Yet there is a Democratic battle coming, despite the quietude that many have remarked on. In fact, the fight is starting right … now.
“Phil Angelides is a loser against Schwarzenegger,” declares Garry South, chief strategist of Gray Davis’s two winning campaigns for governor and guru of Westly’s bid. “He’s an accident waiting to happen. He has a reputation as an environmentalist but he’s really a land developer who made his money on the suburban sprawl around Sacramento. He and his patron Angelo Tsakopoulos (a super-rich developer and business partner of Angelides) are the Sultans of Sprawl. You look at their developments near the threatened levees that could turn the capital into New Orleans, the re-zoned property, the paved-over wetlands, it makes a great visual of what Phil’s ‘environmentalism’ is really about.”
The Angelides response, via senior advisor Bob Mulholland, the longtime state Democratic Party honcho. “This is a tragic repeat of typical Garry South tactics – the same tactics that brought down Democrats and the first successful recall of a sitting governor in California’s history.” … LA Weekly special feature continues …
California State Controller and gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly, locked in a close race for the Democratic nomination with Treasurer Phil Angelides and in a tight projected general election match-up with Arnold Schwarzenegger, will begin TV advertising tomorrow. In Chico. Look for my LA Weekly special feature running down the Democratic race for governor published later today.
The California Teachers Association (CTA) will endorse Treasurer Phil Angelides, front-running Democratic candidate for governor, on Saturday. The CTA was the largest lynchpin of the victorious ABC (Alliance for a Better California) labor coalition which played the lead role in smashing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election agenda last year. CTA spent $55 million in the effort, borrowing against a future dues assessment.
Steve Westly for Governor, For Immediate Release: “The California Organization of Police and Sheriffs (COPS) today announced its support for State Controller Steve Westly for Governor.”
“I mean, come on guys, you know COPS. You may have bought their support. This is the scummiest, most venal bunch of political whores in Western civilization.” — Gray Davis consigliere-turned-Westly chief strategist Garry South, commenting on the episode in the 2002 governor’s race in which COPS, switching its support from Democratic Governor Davis to Republican Bill Simon, produced a photo falsely purporting to show Davis illegally receiving a big campaign check in his state office. From “The 2002 Governor’s Race & The Recall That Made History,” UC Berkeley
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a creditable performance today at his annual address to the Capitol press corps and associated hangers-on hosted by the Sacramento Press Club. But he probably didn’t get everything he wanted out of the performance.
First the upside. Schwarzenegger and his operation have definitely improved this year. His statements fit a consistent narrative. His events push the storyline forward in each community he alights in. He’s talking about things that affect people’s real lives. The infrastructure, the roads, highways, bridges, ports, water systems, schools of California are, as the former action superstar puts it perhaps a tad defensively, “not just throwing big ideas around to sound like big things but dealing with the quality of life in California.” Because he has focused on it, many now see it as “the burning issue for the state.”
Schwarzenegger was assured, never stumbled, had no problems answering or, not infrequently, fending off, questions from a fairly aggressive press corps. This is the sort of performance he needs to get back into the game that he was very nearly run out of as a result of his special election debacle.
And yet, despite the focus and discipline, there was something missing. Something more important than his too-clever-by-half explanation for why it’s okay for his executive staff in the Governor’s Office to double dip from the government and private political payrolls and hang out with contributors and fundraisers during their work week (“Maria and I put a lot of our own money into the campaign so consider them paid out of our share”). Nice try, though. Like you would have accepted that explanation from Gray Davis during the recall, Governor.
That wasn’t it. It was more that there was a certain effervescence missing.
“I have to confess I’ve never seen him perform in person before,” says the woman who made 2005 a nightmare for Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic strategist Gale Kaufman, quarterback for the winning labor coalition in last November’s special election. “I was surprised. I thought he was rather dull.”
It may be that Schwarzenegger’s new team — previously revealed in New West Notes — while certainly righting the ship of Schwarz, is pushing him a little too far in the direction of being Mr. Sobersides. It is true that a little “Arnold” goes a long way. But you still have to have a little “Arnold.”
As I reported earlier, Arnold Schwarzenegger told California Republican board members angry about the appointment of top Democrat/ex-Gray Davis oficial Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff when he met with them last month that he and his new honcha would keep a clear line between public and political business. Since then, she’s become a feature attraction for fundraisers and in his meetings with concerned Republican money people. Now the conservative Republican insurance lobbyist installed as a “balancing” deputy chief of staff, Dan Dunmoyer, is also in on the act, meeting with disgruntled fundraisers. Kennedy, I’m told, is in yet another such meeting today. The explanation has been that she is doing this overtly political work on her vacation time or off hours. What vacation time? She and Dunmoyer just started. As for off hours, there are no off hours in those jobs, certainly not in the middle of the work week. Indeed, it was for that very reason that Kennedy said she would never again take such a post when she departed as Davis’s cabinet secretary three years ago.
Governor Schwarzenegger’s publicity and charm offensive, in which he has a consistent set of statements and a schedule that finally makes sense, may have pronounced limits. A high-ranking Democratic source tells of a series of focus groups conducted last month, with a particular emphasis on conservative Democrats. They are one of the two groups, moderate independents being the other, with whom Schwarzenegger is trying to regain popularity he once had but lost. According to this source, it will take more than a burst of energetic centrist campaigning to make up for the damage that’s been done. Judgments were harsh, not just about Schwarzenegger’s more partisan rhetoric and policies of the year just past, but about him as a person.
You may have noticed that Arnold Schwarzenegger is on a publicity offensive. Today alone he appears at events boosting the “traffic-busting” aspect of his emerging big infrastructure bond package in Southern California and Central California. The PR offensive is not confined to the governor. His staff is finally getting in on the act, with new communications director Adam Mendelsohn meeting and greeting the Capitol press corps at a Sacramento Press Club reception in a trendy downtown restaurant last week. It’s noteworthy because it’s the sort of thing Schwarzenegger’s staff wouldn’t do before, even during that Prague spring when everyone was singing the former action superstar’s praises. A lot of Mendelsohn’s colleagues joined him, including Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer and press secretary Margita Thompson. Not surprisingly, since reporters aren’t that tough to deal with, it went well, with many impressed by Mendelsohn’s open manner. He was even gracious when newscaster-turned-PR exec Deborah Pacyna presented the anything-but-hirsute flack with a photo from his college days. The whole deal was off the record, but I can say that he did bear a remarkable resemblance to a certain redheaded comedian known to frequent Vegas.
In his uphill fight in the Democratic primary for California attorney general against former Governor and presidential candidate/current Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo will announce that top media consultants David Doak and Tom O’Donnell are joining his campaign. Doak and O’Donnell were a key part of the team of killers around former Governor Gray Davis, and have worked in many campaigns around the country. But will Delgadillo have the money to allow them to do their thing, and will it make any difference against the legendary Brown?
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