There were a few moments in the past two weeks in which it seemed as though state Treasurer Phil Angelides was finally about to put away the Democratic gubernatorial primary win which was long expected to go to him. Now, although his early endorsements by most of the Democratic establishment may yet win the nomination for him, he is scrambling to defend his environmental record against a barrage of TV attacks from Controller Steve Westly.
In cinematic ads featuring helicopter shots of Angelides developments, Westly scores the treasurer for his land developer days, criticizing him for violating the Clean Water Act, building on flood plains, and his close association with his longtime patron, Sacramento development kingpin Angelo Tsakopoulos.
Yesterday, Angelides’ campaign produced two events to counter Westly’s attacks against him.
First a conference call for selected reporters with U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer. The senator’s first, very narrow, victory over Republican Bruce Herschensohn in 1992 was greatly aided by then state Democratic chairman Angelides’ mobilization of party resources on her behalf and by then state Democratic political director Bob Mulholland’s dramatic election eve confrontation of Herschensohn for patronizing a Hollywood strip club, the Seventh Veil. (Mulholland is a senior advisor to Angelides in this campaign.) Angelides publicly dismissed Mulholland for his “rogue” tactic on behalf of Boxer’s campaign, then brought him back right after the election.
Boxer, an environmentalist champion herself, insists that Angelides is good on the environment.
Then, after campaigning in San Diego with Teamsters and high school students, Angelides did a rather hastily scheduled afternoon event in Sacramento with longtime environmentalist supporters such as veteran Sierra Club lobbyist and renewable energy advocate V. John White.
The Sierra Club, which has endorsed both Angelides and Westly in this campaign, declined to endorse Angelides when he ran for state treasurer.
But in public office, Angelides has compiled a strong environmental record. He has especially pleased environmentalists by steering public pension funds into renewable energy and in-fill development projects. Now he has a raft of environmental endorsements, which he is brandishing against Westly’s attacks on his record as a land developer.
As he attempts to defend himself in events geared for the news media, which is not paying much attention, Angelides attacks Westly on the air with new TV advertising painting the controller as a “pay to play” politician soliciting contributions in exchange for public pension fund investments.
While both campaigns touted their openness through most of the campaign, both Angelides and Westly have become quite stealthy. Their negative ads are mostly not to be found on their campaign web sites, which once heralded the arrival of new campaign advertising.
Who is most happy about this campaign? The friends of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“We love this,” says one Schwarzenegger advisor who asks not to be named. “Here you have two guys who are little known and have less charisma. Instead of showing they are up to the job, they are introducing themselves to the public by smearing each other. Whichever one wins, Arnold goes up against a guy defined as a guy who wants to raise your taxes, bad on the environment, a crook.”
CORRECTION: Longtime Sierra Club contract lobbyist V. John White no longer lobbies for the organization. He was there wearing one of his other hats, that of California League of Conservation Voters board member.
Read 
| Comments (0) |
Bill, the LA Times has two stories this morning slamming Westly:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-westly27may27,0,5401684.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
and
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-bus27may27,0,2116680.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
Even what should be a nice article about the bus tour is shown in as negative a light as humanly possible.
I’m somewhat disappointed in this obvious bias.
What isn’t pay to play? Angelides gets the money for the enviros pet projects, he gets the enviros endorsements.
What is Westly doing working to get a tax break for a big corporation? What is wrong with these guys?
Aside from being unethical, this is so egregiously stupid that it leaves one speechless:
In a March 14, 2004, e-mail obtained by The Times, Westly informed one of his fundraisers that barnesandnoble.com President Marie J. Toulantis was pleased by his efforts at the tax board, making it a good time to ask for her help in raising campaign cash.
“We have followed up with Marie, the president of Barnes & Noble — and she is reportedly happy…. Could you please call her to see if she would help with our upcoming trip,” says the e-mail to Chicago-based fund-raiser David Rosen. Westly was planning a trip east in April to solicit campaign donations.
In his message to Rosen, the controller attached a string of e-mails written by state employees on state e-mail accounts documenting steps his office had taken on Barnes & Noble’s behalf, mostly lobbying to get the company’s case on the tax board’s agenda.
Nah, it’s actually brilliant. Because, um, ah, hahaha, I’m still thinking …
Yet another reason to get money out of politics!
Sheesh!
I’m glad Westly supports the Hancock Clean Money bill, because it’ll keep him from getting himself (and apparently everyone else – including Phil!) into any more trouble!
While money will never diasppear from the system, it would be nice to removed it’s direct contact with officeholders. In the past two days you have this story and the one where Phil got $4.5 million from people doing business with the pension fund!
I will say this, at least Westly isn’t out there raising money all over the place. Imagine the number of these stories Phil must have, since he’s not self-funding to the level that Westly is…
The whole thing is a real bummer.
Of course it’s not as bad as getting secret payments from steroid — OOPS! I MEAN SUPPLEMENT!!! – companies and then vetoing a bill that would crack down on them. Or the practice of loaning your campaign your money, then refilling your pockets repaying the loan with donor checks.
WAIT a second. Wasn’t Linda Adams Westly’s chief of staff then? Now she is a member of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Cabinet.
This is all part of the fiendish plan of the chess grand master known to the public as the Terminator.
Perhaps Mr. Westly didn’t attend the How-To workshop on Pay For Play when he first took office.
Rule # 1: Don’t use the state email system to document your scheming.
Bill, I think you may be right. You can take your Harvard and Stanford degrees. Arnold is proving to be smarter than both of those guys put together.
Arnold or someone around him…perhaps Ms. Kennedy.
And while we’re talking degrees, let us not forget our President is a graduate of Yale. All that lurnin’ sure paid off for him.
So what do you think about the latest turn in the ad war?
BTW, folks, my anti-spam software catches your posts with more than one web link in them.
I then have to moderate them.
That is why the first post in this thread just showed up here.
The LA Times is one of the few newspapers that have endorsed Angelides. Their coverage reflects their bent. They barely mentioned the Tsakopoulos IE.
Hmmmm…
That’s a good question.
For one thing I’m glad it’s moved past the “he started it phase.” That was just silly. As you summed up along the way, both sides have been throwing punches long before the “air war” began. Read that one Angelides speech and tell me that wasn’t chalk full of attacks. And we all know about Garry South’s poison-pen missives…If we don’t, Angelides will tell us. They don’t ever miss a chance to attack the “King of Mean.”
I don’t think it’s reached the territory where it is helping the Governor. Yet. It’s on the edge, but it’s still in the “let’s get this crap out there now, so it’s old news later” stage.
Things are just so muddied. Basically both sides have leveled the same charges at the other. Both sides want to raise taxes and rape the land.
I am a little surprised at Angelides tactic of leveling charges that could much more easily – and maybe truthfully? – be brought down on him. Who’s he to run an ad about Westly and Pay-For-Play? And on the same day as the $4.5 million from Pension Interests story, no less? That takes a certain amount of balls. (Oh no! I’m talking like Garry South!)
That seems like calling down the thunder. As long as Phil has been raising money, I’m sure he has a lot more in his closet than Westly – who has self-funded and not been around as long. The pay-to-play attack is kind of like his reliance on raising taxes as a signature issue…playing chicken with a train.
Which brings me to a matter of semantics. This story this morning about Westly was more of a play-FOR-play. He made a policy decision, then aftwerward asked a fundraiser to follow up when he swung through The Apple. He capitalized on something he had already done.
With Phil and Angelo it will be pay-TO-play. Phil will be getting paid to “play.” When anything comes before him, he knows he is where he is because of Angelo K. Tsakopolous. The money will be preceding the action. Something about that seems (if only a little) more nefarious than trying to cash in AFTER you’ve made a policy choice.
Aesthetically, I don’t know. As you noted the ads are no longer on people’s websites, and I don’t watch tv. Some of them are lingering on YouTube, I’m sure. Maybe I’ll take a look.
I look forward to the moves back to positive ads (to bring people to the polls feelin’ alright), but don’t know if Angelides can afford to go to running enough positive and negative ads at the same time. I forgot how much money both sides have, but I somehow have a feeling that Phil doesn’t have the resources (without more help from Angelo, of course!).
Ads are too expensive and lead to money situations like the ones we keep seeing in the news about BOTH candidates…and the Guv.
Adam, you’re right!
Controller Westly should be grounded from email for a month for this one!
Wonder what lies in Phil’s emails? I bet he’s the guy who started that “Nigerian Businessman” chain!
Hmm – LA Times endorses Phil, and SHAZZAM! Just like that two more barely disguised Westly slam stories appear in the final stretch of the campaign. I’m shocked Shocked! Do you think they just sort of got the data on this — what — yesterday? The TImes has been sitting on this for weeks I Imagine, after all they endorsed PA quite some ago, so why drop this now? Over a holiday weekend? Juuuuust time enough for PA to cut one more TV spot with — oh yeah the $2 miliion he just put in. WOW That sure was lucky that that money got in there right when these stories hit. It is so transparent it would be funny if it weren;t so sleazy. And for every thing Westly may have done regarding the email traffic do you really believe PA hasn’t done the same thing as Treasurer for programs he has oversight over and that the TImes didn’t go after his emails as well? So where are they? I mean c’mon pots and black kettles folks. It does amaze that the Times has done 4 alleged pay to play stories on Westly and one total softball story on Angelides doing the same thing. Do the math. I never knew the TImes was a Hearst paper . . . William Randolph lives!!
I’d like to keep this focused on the ad war, which is quite significant to the campaign.
The Times has done one or two other stories on Angelides I recall that were pretty negative.
Fair enough but you have to admit the timing could be considered as somewhat suspect given the latest ad PA just put up.
Incidentally, I believe the LA Times poll will be out tomorrow.
Oh imagine what that will show LOL
I blame liberal media bias…oh…that one doesn’t work in this primary, they’re both pretty damn liberal!
At least the final stretch will be entertaining . . .
I find the spin hard to beleive, are you really trying to blame the LA Times for exposing Steve Westly, for something that’s obviously not going to serve him well over the next week? Cause maybe you’re right, Steve could do no wrong here.
I do think someone had this all planned however, we’ve seen Mr. Fat Cat for days now tailing Steve every where he went, it could only be -
Big Bob Mulholland
To become Fat Cats friend on Myspace http://www.myspace.com/misterfatcat
Linda Adams does not work for Bob Mulholland, Brian.
Bill:
This may seem to be off your original issue statement for this post but if you read on, it is relevant and might make sense. This is also more an opinion kind of post that I would like your thoughts on as it relates to the original question of “so what do you think about the latest turn in the ad war?”
Honestly, I think the real fight going is not necessarily in the Democratic party primary between Steve and Phil. If anything, the more the Democrats suck up earned tv and print, the more Arnold And to some degree, I think that the ads going up by both candidates should reflect that too.
In fact, no matter who wins this primary, the fact is the Democratic primary battle may pale in comparison to the potential battle on the other side that will impact the general election.
The real war, while a “Cold War” now could very well heat up.as we move into the general election. That battle is going on in the Schwarznegger campaign and inside the Building in Sacramento. Its something that can possibly benefit whomever the nominee is for the Democrats. This is why…
Within Camp Arnold, you have,on one hand, Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, an experienced and some would say, brilliant, political and legislative operative.
In short, Kennedy knows the legislature, the staff and really knows
and understands political ebbs and flows of our unique political culture. And as my mom always said, “there is no substitute for age and experience.” But, more importantly, she also knows campaigns as well as anyone and can certainly take command of a political operation and make it run right.
On the other hand, you have the ideologue (sp?) in the form of Steve Schmidt. He is, for all intents and purposes, a student of Cheney-Libby-Rove University of reactionary politics and represents a nod to the right wingers of Orange County, et al. Schmidt is an experienced operative in his own right (despite only being 36) and has worked at every level of government and in political campaigns — so he gets it too.
And it is there where you will find the real fight brewing…
When Steve came on board the campaign, the perception was that he was the guy in charge. He would set the tone and lead the message for the campaign. However, as you can see, that he may not really be the guy in charge of the operation.
More importantly, as a right-wing conservative with the values inherent to that side of the aisle, Schmidt has his own ideas of what the message for the Schwarznegger campaign should be — and its not one of real moderation (course, as we know, the hard right approach hasn’t worked for Arnold as we have seen). And no matter the press accounts, Schmidt is probably not pleased with having things run by Kennedy — regardless of who she is, what she knows (and remember the old adage “age and experience”) and how much progress she has made in moving Arnold back to the middle and back into the Governor’s race.
Schmidt, when he hit the ground, came in with a hard-charging, Bush campaign-style agenda that has been severely curbed. And its been curbed because that kind of “shoot-first, shoot some more and when everyone is dead, maybe ask a question or two….” campaign style has proven to be an absolute disaster in the current climate of our state’s politics.
So, while I am no genius, Steve is probably getting a little hot under the collar, frustrated and irritated with the current power structure. He is young, aggressive, smart and capable — but not really experienced in the inside game like Kennedy is. And you will see more of this rift if you look for the signs.
For the Republicans, this is a really, really big issue that they have to confront. Can they marry the two groups into winning the campaign against a united Democratic front. My thought (and I would love your thoughts here, Bill, et al.) I seriously doubt it.
Because, as we know, the right wing takes no prisoners and it could really damage the Governor just as he begins to crawl from the disaster of November 2005. If they decide to torpedo Arnold, they will do it in a very passive aggressive manner — subtle comments by right-wing talking knuckle heads (like Eric Hogue for example) that do the bidding of Schmidt’s conservative minions and will do everything to continue to undermine Kennedy. Their logic is simple, “we would rather get crushed in an important election than let a Democrat take credit for helping a Republican win.”
So with Arnold back in the game, Democrats may appear to have a problem and an opportunity all at the same time. They have a battle-tested, “somewhat smarter than he was last year” incumbent Governor who has moved back to familar moderate political territory. That movement is lead by Kennedy and began with Arnold’s state of the state speech in January. He has even co-opted, to some degree, Democrats in the Assembly who are carrying the water on issues like the transportation bonds. All you have to do is look at the campaign committee Senator Perata has put together for the bond issue — its a who’s who of Arnold and Bush contributors….seriously, look at the list in the Morning Report. I am not criticizing Perata, but it is what it is…
Although, the Dems might have problems with a reviving Schwarznegger Administration (PPIC and Field numbers bare this out if ya look close enough), they also have an opening with the growing potential of a Kennedy-Schmidt rift where both are fighting for control of the heart and mind of a very conflicted Arnold Schwarznegger.
So while Phil and Steve battle it out, I am not so certain things are any better on the other side. I think it is just better hidden right now while the Dems suck up all the earned media oxygen.
More importantly, when the Dems come together, get disciplined on message and management, the inevitable result will be a big fight in the Arnold campaign between the ideologues, like Steve Schmidt and people like the screech owl Karen Hanratty (as a side note, Karen is a nice woman and good press person, but jesus, she just needs to take her voice down a notch or two…for example, when she appeared on Eric Hogue’s radio show as the Party spokesperson, she often sounded like a cross between a drunken sorority girl and Joan Rivers reporting from the red carpet at the Oscars) and the moderate elements trying to keep Arnold from moving to the same dark side that crushed him last November.
So while the Dems are going after each other with ads in a tight primary, the fact is the Reeps should be more concerned about how they keep their own family together. Cause, like lava bubbling under the surface of a volcano, when the campaign gets hot and the Reeps starting taking hits from a disciplined Democratic campaign — you will see a real internal war start with the Republicans and it will be a hundred times worse than anything you see in the current Democratic primary.
Of course, I know absolutely nothing about the functioning of Schwarzworld …
I’m surprised you “find the spin hard to believe” – Beev – seeing as you are such an independent, unbiased observer.
So, perhaps you’d like to put the shoe on the other foot and explain the other LA Times story…the one that laid out all of your candidate’s pay-for-play practices?
Looks like both sides are a little bit in the shit with these deals.
And with Phil’s longer record and more rampant fundraising (because he can’t self-fund to the level of Westly, and you can only count on sugar daddies for so much), you may not want to tempt fate when all the information is basically two links away (Secretary of State and Google).
I’m sure The King of Mean and Prince Nicholas are combing the internet as we speak to get into all those deals from Phil’s seven-plus years in office.
You’ll look pretty silly when you see how many deals can go down with that many more years in office.
At least you’re using your real name…
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=4003727
When I join MySpace, you’re going to be my first friend! The Fat Cat is second. Don’t know how good of a friend he’ll be after he vanishes in a little over a week. No matter who wins or loses.
We’ve got CA Dem and CADTS…where’s CAL REP or CALGOP? CaLibertarian?
CADTS you assume that Steve Schmidt is a right-winger because he worked for Bush and Cheney. He worked for Matt Fong before that.
I assume he has the politics of an ambitious young guy.
Ann,
He is a right winger…while he worked for Matt, I believe he also worked at the NRCC and the RNC during the Gingrich/DeLay years too.
Trust me, Steve is a right-winger because, for example, the NRCC, in the time of Tom (DeLay, not Reynolds) demanded unswerving obedience to the cause — anything less got you fired and sent into political oblivion (kinda like being a Republican candidate for Senate in New York these days.).
In Sacramento, I firmly we have a gasoline and match situation in the Building…Susan may be gasoline but if I were the Reeps, I firmly believe that Steve is the match. He is ambitious but, at the end of the day, he has become an ideologue because he believes it or for career survival. The fact is, you don’t survive in the current Republican party by NOT being one. To think any other way is somewhat naive because these right-wing guys are political cannibals of the highest order — its kind of like the McCarthy era, minus the communists and Senator Crazy Joe…
Bill, you coy minx….c’mon, share your thoughts…
Steve Schmidt worked for the Republican Party? Well, that PROVES HE IS A RIGHT-WINGER. lol
In the current environment…yeah, it does. Sorry, I don’t know how you can do otherwise with the guys they have in control. They are true believers Ann, they really are. For the time Steve was there, allegiance to the Cause was (and still is) the litmus test. Again, whether he adopted their message out of necessity or because he believes it, the right-wingers out of Orange County see him as their messenger boy to Arnold. Thats the perception…
BTW, ask Chris Shays, Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chafee, Susan Collins or any other moderate Republican from 1994 on about what happened to the party of Eisenhower, et al. Ask them how far they could take their own personal issues forward (for example, Snowe, Chafee and Collins are all pro-choice…that worked well right?)
Ask them how well they succeeded in keeping their party from going off the ideological cliff like so many lemmings…
Ann, you don’t work for Scooter and Cheney without strict adherence to their Cause as well. You may laugh out loud — but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…my guess is that it ain’t a friggin unicorn.
I’m curious why you are trying to plant this on my blog.
Hi CG!
Let me see, Mr. Bradley wants us to stick to the Ad war…well, this primary campaign was designed for “couch potatoes.” I am not a couch potato,nor are my girlfriends…so we do not see these ads really very often…the last one I saw was during “24″ last Monday night…I think I was a Phil ad, but because I know I am voting for Westly I really did not listen to it…I may have walked out of the room …can’t remember…Now, I have to take my dog to the river he is mad at me because when I went riding this morning I made him stay at home…Toodles!
Not planting at all…just asking for thoughts from you. Considering there are two opposing forces working for the Governor, it just makes me think there is a fight going on. If that is not a topic for discussion, I will drop it. But don’t you, as a journalist, think there is even a possibility of this? If not, discussion closed.
The Westly developer ads were all over the season finale of “Lost.” He’s buying big in prime time, I didn’t see an Angelides ad.
I think there are MANY possibilities, CADTS, including the one I suggested to you.
Here is how I rate the campaigns on my “Frosty” scale:
1. Arnold
2. Steve
3. Phil
Your blog reports with respect to the Sierra Club endorsement:
“The Sierra Club, which has endorsed both Angelides and Westly in this campaign, declined to endorse Angelides when he was running for state treasurer.”
In fact, the Sierra Club endorsed Angelides when he ran for reelection as treasurer in 2002.
In 1998, the Sierra Club did not endorse Angelides, instead taking an oppose Pringle position as it’s official position in the treasurer’s race. Four years later, the Sierra Club endorsed Angelides for reelection. The endorsement was based on Angelides’ environmental record during his first term, and the view that a public official’s record in office is the best indicator of how that candidate will perform if reelected.
Similarly, the Sierra Club’s endorsement of Angelides for Governor (as part of a dual endorsement of both Angelides and Westly) takes into consideration his environmental record during his service as treasurer. A candidate’s positions are important too, and Angelides’ positions on the environment are very good, but a public official’s record in office is a better indicator than either campaign promises or what that candidate may have done in earlier years in business or his or her private life.
In fact, he was not running for treasurer in 2002, he was the treasurer in 2002.
Why didn’t the Sierra Club endorse Angelides before he became Treasurer?
I think the Westly ads have answered that question . . .
I want the spinner to explain why Angelides wasn’t endorsed by the Sierra Club before he became Treasurer and could get goodies from the public pension funds for them.
What Phil Angelides did as a developer, when no one was looking, and when it came to the profit motive, matters just as much, if not more so, as what he did he as Treasurer, and in the public eye.
And he can trot out Barbara Boxer, and he can trot out Sara Wan, and he can trot out V. John White to sing his praises, but all the rhetoric in the world is not going to change the fact that this Democratic candidate for Governor has a terrible record on the environment.
Nothing they say or do can change the fact that Phil Angelides has violated the Clean Water Act, destroyed wetlands and vernal pools, contributed greatly to sprawl in the suburbs of Sacramento, obliterated endangered species’ habitats in North Natomas, and has taken the bulk of his campaign cash for the last 15 years from Angelo Tsakopoulos, a man who violated the Federal Clean Water Act 358 times in ONE DEVELOPMENT ALONE and was fined $571,000 for dumping 5.9 MILLION gallons of chemical laden storm water into the Sacramento Area’s Morrison Creek (and destroying even more wetlands in the process).
And Angelides continues to make $1.65 million a year in outside income off his real estate deals. What are the details of these shady deals? No one knows. Why? Because Phil Angelides has flatly refused to disclose any information about his financial affairs before he became Treasurer.
Phil’s enviro backers can cheerlead for him until they’re blue in the face but the E.P.A., Army Corps of Engineers, and major CA papers all say Phil Angelides has wreaked havoc upon our land and water, as has his biggest financial backer.
I think Angelides enviro defender V. John White’s wife works for Angelides.
Ann,
Your guess that V. John White’s wife works for Angelides is incorrect. Nice try though.
Should I guess who YOU work for?
I think she does or did work for Angelides. I work for me. I criticize both these candidates.
Elect Jerry Brown governor to join me as the only third term governor in California hisotry.
Ann: If you want to criticize Angelides you should have at him for what he has done or failed to do but I don’t think it is good form to cast aspersions about V. John White because he appeared at an Angelides event. White has a well-deserved reputation as an honest broker on matters he has been involved in, and has earned that reputation from adversaries and allies alike.
I admit that I am new to the world of blogging, but I thought that there would be some balance on this site OR some real policing of the ‘spin.’
I marvel that Mark Massara who has an impeccable environmental record and taken on the toughest environmental fights in this state (and, yes, who has endorsed Angelides but does not work for him or in his campaign) would not be allowed to speak without being called a ‘spinner,’ yet someone who spits out the BS from the Westly campaign (Nick Velasquez?) gets to ‘spin’ without restraint.
As for Nick’s attacks on Sara Wan (V. John White, etc.), I can tell you from experience that there is no one in this state that has a record on the environment and the coast like Sara does. No one has the uncompromising standards that she brings to her work. Unlike many others, Sara in unafraid of who she pisses off in the process regardless of the seat they sit in. If it’s the Governor, so be it. Sara does not care WHO you are, she cares about WHAT you do. And anyone who works to protect the environment in this state knows that.
Sara has looked at both candidates records and made her decision. In addition, she personally investigated all of Westly’s charges and found them to be FALSE. For Sara, it’s not about rhetoric or attack ads, it’s about truth. If you want to hear about that, you should contact her directly via Vote the Coast – which by the way has probably the most grueling endorsement procedure I am aware of.
If you believe in your candidate, do so, but you shouldn’t demonize strong environmental advocates who have a proven track record over many decades. Unless of course, you are desperate and without ethics.