The campaigns of relentlessly bickering Democratic gubernatorial rivals Phil Angelides and Steve Westly, absent past bravado, head toward the home stretch of their dead heat race for the Democratic nomination. Here is what the candidates are doing between now and the weekend, and why, as they continue their desperate struggle for the right to run against Arnold Schwarzenegger.
State Controller Steve Westly, the ex-eBay honcho who test marketed and honed his candidacy in small markets a few months ago, has been spending much time in them on the statewide bus tour he kicked off a week ago. Why? Westly’s TV ad blitz developed real strength in the Los Angeles and San Francisco media markets, but when Angelides and the independent expenditure campaign principally funded by the development empire of his campaign finance co-chairman and longtime patron and partner, Angelo Tsakopoulos, roared back onto the air after a few weeks absence, Westly found himself in trouble in the other media markets.
Personal attention can make a big difference for a candidate for a big office in a small market, so Westly is back in person. But inevitably, his tour will take him back toward the big markets as the campaign comes to its close.
Meanwhile, over the next three days Westly and his wife, Anita Yu Westly, will be campaigning in Ventura County, various parts of Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and San Diego. His events will focus on education, the environment, veterans, and senior citizens.
Today Westly is in Thousand Oaks touring a medical clinic. Then there is an event at UCLA, and a senior citizen event in the San Fernando Valley. He will do more events in Los Angeles on Thursday, trying to shore up his strength there.
On Friday, Westly goes to the Inland Empire to tour a solar manufacturing facility, has a lunch event with workers, goes to suburban San Diego to visit a senior citizen center, and has a town hall in San Diego.
While Westly is doing this, his campaign will continue airing its attack ads against Angelides. The focus continues to be on his environmental record as a developer.
Although principals in both the Westly and Angelides campaign have historically subscribed to the theory that a campaign is best served by focusing on driving a few core messages home to the electorate through a few TV ads over the closing sequence of a campaign, both campaigns are violating that principle as they seek advantage. Angelides went through a bout of advertising arrhythmia recently, airing five TV spots statewide over a course of six days as the candidate reacted to the attacks mounted against him. Now Westly’s campaign is doing something like that, in what might be described as a flurry strategy, forcing Angelides to respond.
The latest Westly attack ad on Angelides, continuing the environmental theme, concerns his partnership with Tsakopoulos and others in a condo development at Lake Tahoe. Westly accuses Angelides of polluting the big blue lake in the sky, one of California’s scenic crown jewels. Angelides, who seems to have had a small piece of the project, says he was not responsible and sued the primary developer who he says was responsible. Angelides then transferred his interest in the project to Tsakopoulos.
For his part, Angelides, whose long expected bus tour has yet to materialize, will continue his practice of jetting up and down the state between the major population centers. His campaign will continue trying to push the “fat cat” visual (some poor soul in a suit sent by Angelides honcho Bob Mulholland) at Westly’s bus tour stops as part of the overall theme that Westly is buying the election so he can do favors for other rich people.
This is in synch with the current Angelides TV advertising push to paint the super-rich Westly as a “pay to play” politician. The campaign held a media conference call yesterday to push a Sacramento Bee story which revealed that Westly had invested in Goldman Sachs, the leading investment banking firm, prior to approving Goldman Sachs and other houses financing California’s revenue anticipation notes when the state was in financial extremis a few years ago. Westly says Goldman Sachs, one of the eminent Wall Street firms, was one of the few eager to provide finance and that his investment was a minor part of his portfolio. The press doesn’t seem interested in the story.
A TV attack ad on the issue is expected, complementing the current ad linking Westly to “a corrupt Chicago businessman” who gave several thousand dollars to Westly and whose firm subsequently received a $5 million investment from a state pension fund. Angelides also solicited the businessman, a recent top fundraising official for Al Gore and the Democratic National Committee. There is also a likely ad on Westly raising money from the Barnes and Noble bookstore chain after advocating that the company not pay back taxes on its Internet sales.
As his campaign dukes it out with Westly’s in dueling attack ads, Angelides will appear mostly at education and labor-oriented events. That is the core of his candidacy, that he is the candidate who wants to spend the most money on public education and is the candidate closest to the state’s powerful public employee unions. Angelides hopes that this core message and set of associations will enable him to prevail in an election which may draw only a preponderance of hardcore Democratic voters. He seems to be doing somewhat fewer public events than Westly, but fills up the rest of the time with TV and radio interviews and fundraising.
Today Angelides will be in San Francisco, where he will again attempt to push back against the Westly TV attack ads with an environmentalists event. He will also appear at a high school in Sacramento.
On Thursday, he has another school event in San Francisco, jets down to LA for a beach town event with Senator Dianne Feinstein, then flies back for a San Jose event.
On Friday, Angelides does firefighter and police union events in the Bay Area, then goes to San Diego. Where, as it happens, Westly will also be appearing.
Whose approach will work best? That will be clearer by the weekend.
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I bet Schwarzenegger is all over the TV screen with an upbeat, positive message starting about next Wednesday.
“The campaign held a media conference call yesterday to push a Sacramento Bee story which revealed that Westly had invested in Goldman Sachs, the leading investment banking firm, prior to approving Goldman Sachs and other houses financing California’s revenue anticipation notes when the state was in financial extremis a few years ago.”
That was a very lame story. What conflict of interest?..as if it was somehow “unusual” Goldman Sachs would participate in the “RANS’ …Puleeze! This story followed the previous day’s very telling and negative story about Mr. T. and how he operates politically…I am sure the BEE took some heat from that story from certain people in this town …hence, the need to quickly follow it with this negative article on Westly…even the BEE knew it was a lame piece because then the next day they ran an article which clearly refuted the conflict of interest allegation.
Why would Newman push that lame bank story when there’s the far juicier Barnes & Noble situation? My guess: people actually like Barnes & Noble. Had Westly gotten walmart.com off the hook, look out!
Don’t be surprised by a Barnes & Noble-oriented attack ad.
I wonder why Bradley has Angelo Tsakopoulos’s number and the Sacramento Bee does not. How many reporters do they have sitting around in Sacramento? They should be able to track down one 75-year old developer.
Mr Bradley: “Don’t be surprised by a Barnes & Noble-oriented attack ad. ”
Well, my horse, “Chance”, wants a public informing, as opposed to “attack” “Where’s Phil/Placer County” ad.
The whole press corps has shamefully dropped the ball on the Tsakopoulos matter. They are allowing him to stiff the whole press corps by refusing to return reporter’s calls or make any comment about this massive expenditure of money on Angelides. Of course, he going to not return reporter’s calls – he never has, and he’s gotten away with it. Reporters know where he lives, they know where he works, they know where goes to church, they know what car he drives, they know where he eats. Why don’t they stake out the arrogant SOB? Camp out in his driveway or in front of his office. What happened to old-fashioned journalism? Go stake out the guy and stick a camera in his face, get his truculence and refusal to comment on tape. This is the biggest story and development of the whole campaign, and by far the biggest IE in a state race in American history — and the press corps has let the main perpetrator entirely stiff them. It’s really pathetic. These are the public’s watchdogs? Yap, yap.
Mr. South: “and the press corps has let the main perpetrator entirely stiff them. It’s really pathetic. ”
“Forget Jake, this is Chinatown.”
That’s “Forget It Jake, this Chinatwon”
I love the film “Chinatown” “Noah Cross” (John Huston) was a pretty intimidating fellow…
To some extent, I agree with Garry. $8.7M is a whole lot of money. I want to know the real reason for this expenditure. Does AKT see Phil like a son? Is this simply Greek pride taken to the extreme? Or does he see Angelides as his ticket to get the green light on all future developments?
I think that voters deserve to know Tsakapolous’ motivations for this unprecedented effort. Angelides’ own supporters should want to know, too. It’s their guy whose decisionmaking could be impacted.
We all know why Westly is spending $34.5M of his own money. The man really, really wants to be Governor — maybe too much for his own sake. He could have taken that money and done many other great things with it. But it’s his right, and it’s understandable. Angelo’s efforts make less sense.
So, I suppose I agree with the “King of Mean”: with only a week left in the primary, the media has largely let Angelo off the hook. I worry that if Phil beats Steve, that’s when newspapers and TV stations will do what they should have done all along, exposing Angelo’s motives and handing a general election victory to the Schwarzenegger in the process.
Motives, shmotives, we are supposed to believe this farce is an “independent” operation. Bradley exposed that Tsakopoulos flies Angelides around in his plane, is an official of his campaign, talks with him regularly. There is no way that is an “independent expenditure.”
I believe that all the major newspapers in the state have run articles on Tsakopoulos. A stake-out? Get real. What we have here is some pre-emptive blame spinning. If Westly loses, all we’ll hear is how Angelo bought the election.
Of course, the Westly campaign has spent a lot more than both Angelides and Tsakopolous combined.
And let’s not forget that the criticism of both campaigns has to do with the complete reliance on TV ads, both positive and negative, with very little substance and very little leadership offered to the voters.
Whoever wins, I hope they’ll be some fence-mending and an end to this constant bickering. Right now, both campaigns are potentially creating a lot of sore losers.
On the I.E….that is where I see a real difference between the DTS and the Dem voters that I know …among people I know who are DTS …the I.E. precisely, because they do not see it as an I.E. is paramount and they are concerned about Mr. T potential hold on an Angelides Admin…but among people I know who are registered DEMs, and always vote for Dems with the exception of the RECALL…they just blow the I.E. story off as a another political corrupt money tale..i.e., politics as usual…I suppose this upcoming poll will provide more insights into really is the major concern of a DTS voter who votes for a Dem candidate and if they vote for Arnold that will tell us alot too.
This has nothing to do with being Greek — it’s about the Tsakopoulos family buying politicians, which they’ve been doing for decades. They don’t care whether those politicians are Greek — or Trojans.
Mr. South: I don’t recall you complaining about AKT money when it was going to Gray Davis.
I bet Bradley wants Angelides to win.
I have to agree with Adam in regards to the reliance on television. The classic argument that California is a large state and too big to have real ground campaigns just doesn’t wash with me. Look what Westly’s doing on his bus tour. What if he had done that two month ago and visited 10 times as many communities. If you want my vote, it’s nice if you come and ask for it. Phil’s jetsetting is frustrating as there is no predictability to where he’s going to be and thus no momentum built by his public campaigning. I think if Steve wins it will be because of his time and effort in inland communities, which would perhaps remind candidates that there’s more to politics than tv. Of course consultants don’t get percentages of public campaigning…
That said, I saw Phil last night at an event in LA and it was nice to see him be positive again. The shame of it all for me is that I actually do find him somewhat inspiring when he’s positive but in this campaign those moments have been few and far between.
Garry South is right. And what hasn’t been reported is that Angelo T. also funded a massive IE for Aeneas, once it was clear he was going to survive the Fall of Troy, and eventually go on to found the new Troy, aka Rome.
BTW, The Aeneid is a hell of a lot more fun this campaign.
Hey if I had a billion dollars and my friend was running for Governor against someone who had a huge bankroll, I would drop a few million to help him out.
Then again, I am a pretty good friend.
And then again, as someone who works for Pacifica Radio, you probably don’t have a lot of business interests regulated by state government.
Josh,
Would you be hiding from all the media and leaving you friend out there to hang himself?
The IE will be a deciding issue if Angelides were to make it to the general. This will be exploited and Arnold and Co. will paint Angelides a Mr. Special Interest – having his hands bound by developers (largely AT) and unions. Angelides will be labeled only as a different shade of Gray. Between this characterization and the tax hike platform, unfortunately, an Angelides run is doomed. Angelides’ advisors have put him in this awful position of representing everything that the voters soundly rejected in the recall.
I think the biggest issue they rejected on the special was Arnold
uhh . . . the recall not the special election. BTW Arnold won during the recall Brian. You really need to stop this blind shilling for PA nor matter what scintilla of potential negative observation about him arises. It really is rather sad.
True. I spoke of the recall, when Davis got the boot.
Matt, Tsakapoulos gave Gray Davis $12 million? Are you familiar with proportionality? Come on. That’s a silly argument.
I agree with CA Dem. If Angelides wins, the media’s going to swing their spotlight on him and do Arnold’s work for him.
I can’t believe Phil is getting away with this. He’s a developer who’s being bankrolled by a developer buddy.
I guess the Fat Cat is doing an IE for Steve, his newest ad is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMziToQFO9I
I’m with CA Dem and Paminator. Ahhnold and the press will have it ‘too easy’ taking-down Phil.