** As Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continues his very small TV ad buy, leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly, the ex-eBay honcho-turned-state Controller, is shifting the mix of his buy to a new spot on education. The ad for Westly, who taught at Stanford, focuses on teacher training as a priority, keeping promises on education funding, and the state Lottery. State Treasurer Phil Angelides is also reportedly planning a shift in his advertising strategy, perhaps to a weightlifting-themed spot in which an Arnold lookalike fails at a lift, to further draw the contrast between his views and those of Schwarzenegger.
** Well, they’re at it again and, oddly enough, I didn’t get the attack memo that started this round off. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Phil Angelides and Steve Westly attacked each other again today. And the missive that started it off — an attack by Angelides on Westly’s tax amnesty/tax collection program and the controller’s honesty about it, or lack of same — never found its way to me. Strangely, I did get a couple other things from Angelides today, including his fulsome praise of the resigned-under-fire Rob Reiner. Westly replied with a blast at Angelides for the attack, and for evidently blasting Westly on Al Franken‘s radio show for allegedly praising Schwarzenegger for cutting funding for autistic children. I have unreturned calls into the Angelides campaign on this exciting stuff. As readers know, I’ve chided both campaigns for a destructive tit-for-tat, and published a Sunday column on Warren Beatty‘s hard-edged call to the campaigns to avoid negativity in the primary.
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| Comments (22) |
Why don’t we have a debate featuring Nick Velasquez and one of the Angelides daugthers?
That would be a gas!
Excellent idea!
If you host a web chat with those two, you can call it “Surrogate Showdown.”
let that be the warm up act then we can have the main event between the two principles and bill it as:
Wimp vs. Weasel
If the rumors of the Angelides ad are true, here’s how it will play out:
1) Bloggers and a few early stories from papers opine that this is one of the funniest ads ever. TV stations will ad the air too, which is what the campaign wants (or so it thinks).
2) Next day print stories will feature some spokesdudes poo-poohing the ad and trying to come up with some lame weightlifting analogy or idiom. “Phil believes in pushing policy, not weight” or “Arnold cares about Fiscal fitness too!”
3) Opposing campaigns will focus group the ads and discover it’s the most horrible ad ever made. (Southian quote preview “If only Phil worked out that muscle in his head…”) This will lead into second day of stories asking how in the hell such pablum get aired.
4) Bloggers and opinion leaders who said it was funny will reverse themselves and say this was the worst ad they have ever seen.
That’s just my guess.
Have you seen the animated short about Arnold on the Angelides website?
Badge of courage to anyone who makes it through the whole thing without
wincing.
It’s unfortunate you can’t “unsee” the animated short in question.
No kidding. It’s only 15 seconds, but we’re never getting that back.
That’s very funny.
Saw the Westly education ad and liked it. This is totally unscientific, but I just have a feeling that Westly is starting to pull away.
Oh my god. They look and sound *exactly* like Meadow Soprano. “We know we’re lucky to call him dad. We hope California gets to call him… Governor.”
Angelides Dreams Video
Governor Schwarzenegger’s ad is very good. Even conservatives appreciate the beauty of San Francisco, without embracing the insane politics over there. Even Rush Limbaugh talks about how it is a great city. The important part of his ad is 500k new jobs, workers comp, and all the LIGHTS! SF is the prettiest city in the world, when viewed from >2000ft above the streets.
Despite ample warning I too have lost several precious minutes of my life forever watching that damned Arnold cartoon.
The upshot is I recognized a voice or two in there and I can’t wait to run into them.
When I first saw the Arnold cartoon back in… October? I thought it was funny in a crude way. For two days I was humming to myself, ‘deez are da peepul in muh naybah-hud…’
Somebody please translate ‘deez are da peepul in muh naybah-hud…’ into how it would sound in Mexican. I would enjoy an Angelides ad which makes fun of Mexican accents the same way he makes fun of Austrian accents. What is that dude’s problem?
I agree with AthlonGuy on that one. Except, subsitute ‘Spanish’ for ‘Mexican.’
Understand PPIC poll will be coming out this week and that head to head matchup between Angelides and Westly puts Westly in front by a point; but that Governor beats Angelides by 13 and Westly by 8 in their matchups. If true, Governor may have turned his slide around, and Angelides slide seems to be just beginning.
I am a subscriber to the PPIC Poll and am under embargo until midnight and so cannot comment at the moment.
Angelides is John Van de Kamp II.
The fact that you guys are still talking about the cartoon means it was successful, good or not it got around.
Like that annoying tune you can’t get out of your head, that cartoon does stick in your mind.
Mi92hH Ppl like you get all the brains. I just get to say thanks for he answer.
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