According to the pro-Angelides independent expenditure campaign’s spokesman, there is no new money for TV advertising. But there is another $700,000 from the development empire of Sacramento kingpin and longtime Phil Angelides patron Angelo Tsakopoulos for direct mail, says rather apologetic committee spokesman Carroll Wills. This money, it turns out, was sent by wire transfer from AKT Investments before Wills and committee consultant David Townsend told me, on the record, that the Californians for a Better Government independent expenditure campaign had received no new funding beyond the latest $1 million from the Tsakopoulos land development empire and $1 million from the California Teachers Association which, following a week off the air, has fueled the past week of pro-Angelides independent expenditure TV advertising for state Treasurer Phil Angelides in his closely fought Democratic gubernatorial primary against ex-eBay honcho-turned-state Controller Steve Westly.
At $7.7 million, this is the biggest independent expenditure campaign in the history of California, perhaps the nation. $6.7 million comes from Tsakopoulos, Angelides’ campaign finance co-chairman and decades long patron and partner. The Sacramento developer declines to talk to anyone from the press about his role. A number of journalists have called him at his office. None have received a return call from the developer, who is one of the richest men in California. One private home number I had for Tsakopoulos was disconnected after I left one message with a member of his household staff. Tsakopoulos has not returned a call placed Saturday to another private number I have for him.
How was it that this latest $700,000 in Tsakopoulos money was not acknowledged when I spoke to both the IE’s consultant and spokesman? Townsend was not available on his private cell phone. Wills, communications director for the California Professional Firefighters, was available on his private cell phone.
“I didn’t get the heads up from our campaign treasurer,” Wills, the IE’s designated spokesman, explains. “We aren’t the action officers on this,” he says, referring to the funding of the committee and the firefighters union, a central member of the IE’s steering committee, whose president, Lou Paulson, previously said the union had control over the committee’s functioning.
Who is the action officer on the funding of the committee? Wills said he wasn’t sure. When it was revealed by the Sacramento Bee that firefighters union president Paulson had participated in an Angelides campaign strategy session with labor leaders, the union announced that there was an internal “firewall” shielding Paulson from the day-to-day functioning of the IE.
I’ve learned from several sources that, as previously reported, barring major additional funding from Tsakopoulous — of whom it was recently said that his role was to “match” spending by others — there is not much more funding for the IE in the works.
There will be no more money, say several sources, from the California Teachers Association, widely criticized in political circles for providing $1 million little more than a week ago to the IE. Why criticized? Because it hurts the argument of the Alliance for a Better California (ABC) labor coalition, of which CTA is the cornerstone member, against the “independent” Chamber of Commerce campaigns for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The original conception of the pro-Angelides IE, bandied about for months in Capitol circles, was that it would spend upwards of $10 million on behalf of Angelides, much of it from developers not named Tsakopoulos. Those developers, however, given the controversy that has arisen around the effort, have declined to participate.
But there will be a little more money from organized labor for the Angelides IE.
Several sources say that the electrical workers union will come through with $200,000 for Californians for a Better Government.
“That’s it from labor,” says a well-informed source, who says that the CTA has hedged its primary bets by calling the campaign of Angelides rival Steve Westly to say that CTA will spend no more in the primary for “external” campaigning.
Another labor source confirms that, in addition to the previously undisclosed direct mail, the pro-Angelides IE has also paid for undisclosed polling. The private polling shows a very tight Democratic race between Angelides and Westly, essentially even with not quite 40 percent of primary voters undecided.
The doings of this record-breaking independent expenditure campaign are, needless to say, rather mysterious. Nearly as mysterious as the multiplicity of TV ads for the official Angelides and Westly campaigns over the past week. But that is another story.
The controversial independent expenditure TV advertising campaign for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides is again ending. “I’m standing on a street corner with a cup in my hand,” quips the committee’s veteran Democratic consultant, David Townsend, referring to the committee having no additional money to continue advertising beyond Sunday.
“We have hopes to raise more money,” says California Professional Firefighters communications director Carroll Wills, spokesman for the Californians for a Better Government committee. “But we have not booked additional time without the additional funds. Our buyers want money in hand.”
The group’s TV ads are viewable here on the firefighters union web site.
The group, organized and funded by close political associates of Angelides, namely a few public employee unions and the candidate’s longtime patron and partner, Angelo Tsakopoulos, has been controversial since it began last month, with doubts of its independence. It has also been very effective, spending $7 million on TV advertising for Angelides. $2 million of that from last weekend to this weekend, after being off the air for nearly a week prior to that. And an even more crucial $5 million over a two-week period beginning April 23rd.
It was during that period, in which the official Angelides campaign got back on the air itself, that the state treasurer, who had long been viewed as the prohibitive favorite before losing his lead, closed the gap in polls with Controller Steve Westly. Although ex-eBay honcho Westly is funding his drive from his dot-com boom fortune, during that critical period Angelides outspent him on TV, largely on the strength of the independent expenditure. Both are vying to take on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the November election.
All of the first $5 million came from the Sacramento development empire of Angelides campaign finance co-chairman Angelo Tsakopoulos, Angelides’ decades long patron and business partner. Half of the next $2 million, which runs out Sunday, came from Tsakopoulos, the other half from the California Teachers Association (CTA), a union whose endorsement is featured in all of Angelides’ ads and materials and whose officials participate in the campaign’s various councils.
It had always been planned that other individuals not named Tsakopoulos would pitch in to fund the venture. But with the group becoming controversial from its inception and other developers not wanting publicity, it did not pan out that way, although committee sources had said that such funds were definitely on their way.
So other unions have been asked to step up to fund needed TV advertising for Angelides down the stretch run of the campaign, with Tsakopoulos — who won’t talk to any journalist about his role — available to “match” any contributions. Tsakopoulos and his daughter Eleni, president of the family’s AKT Development Corp., one of Angelides’ former jobs, matched the million dollar CTA contribution, with Angelo providing another $800,000 and Eleni another $200,000.
But only CTA came up with the cash, for the advertising ending this weekend, and a very well-placed labor source does not expect either the teachers union or other unions to provide much more at this point.
“Phil can sure use the help,” says the source, referring to private polling showing the race to be very tight and the current effective TV ad, ending Sunday, with a classroom teacher extolling the virtues of Angelides.
Right now, that is the only positive TV ad for either of the candidates, whose contest has devolved into a messy welter of charges and counter-charges.
** Both Democratic gubernatorial campaigns are prepping looooong tours of the state by their candidates, Phil Angelides and Steve Westly, starting next week. They are wrapping up a long series of editorial board interviews. On Tuesday, Angelides will appear at the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club, where Westly wowed last month and Rob Reiner went down in flames the month before.
** In announcing his appointment of Linda Adams as state environmental secretary, Schwarzenegger reiterated that retired CalEPA Secretary Alan Lloyd will remain as head of the Climate Action Team. Prior to replacing the equally liberal Terry Tamminen as state environmental secretary (when Tamminen moved over to become first cabinet secretary and now senior advisor to the governor on energy and the environment), Lloyd had for many years enjoyed an international reputation among environmentalists as head of the California Air Resources Board.
** MEXICAN PRESIDENT VICENTE FOX SPOKE IN TIJUANA YESTERDAY BUT HAD NO SOLUTION FOR THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE. He travels to California next week. On Thursday, he addresses the Legislature in Sacramento and is hosted at a dinner by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. On Friday, he meets in Los Angeles with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Arnold Schwarzenegger now has the former top aides to his two would-be Democratic rivals working for him. It’s all part of his strategy of “buying off the ticked off,” as an Arnold friend puts it.
Yesterday the governor moved unilaterally to take another major Democratic issue off the table by raising the minimum wage. Today he appoints lifelong Democrat and environmental favorite Linda Adams as his new secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. With the retirement of veteran air quality warrior Alan Lloyd from CalEPA, there had been concern in environmental circles that the secretaryship would go to a more pro-business type, concern that increased when Schwarzenegger appeared to back off some from his ambitious greenhouse gas emissions program at his climate change summit in San Francisco City Hall last month.
But Adams, who was legislative affairs secretary for former Governor Gray Davis, gets major credit for helping win the landmark 2002 bill by LA area Assemblywoman Fran Pavley to sharply cut vehicle tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. Schwarzenegger has vowed to defend the legislation in court against automakers and the Bush Administration even as he promotes a more expansive greenhouse gas program, and Adams will now play a leading role in all that.
At the private reception following Davis’ 2002 signing of the bill on a bluff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge — replete with Robert Redford and beaming environmentalists — the for once ebullient governor was effusive in his praise of Adams, one of his favorite staffers. She served later for a time as director of the Department of Water Resources. She did some consulting with Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review, winning respect from conservatives there who found her “respectful and persuasive,” then was chief of staff to Controller Steve Westly for a year before going into consulting and taking a Schwarzenegger appointment to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.
While this move shores up Schwarzenegger’s bona fides on global warming, a key issue in his positioning, his end run around the Legislature to raise the minimum wage will shore up his labor bona fides in the wake of his unsuccessful war with labor last year. Team Schwarzenegger says the $1 an hour increase will put $2 billion a year more in the hands of the working poor.
As he did with his big solar energy bill, taking it to the Public Utilities Commission for enactment when thwarted last year by the Legislature, Schwarzenegger is turning to another commission to enact the minimum wage increase, the moribund Industrial Welfare Commission. The Legislature defunded it in 2004. But it still exists, and Schwarzenegger will revive it with an infusion of funds from its parent agency.
Legislative liberals want their own more expansive minimum wage legislation, with automatic increases every year geared to inflation. They blocked Schwarzenegger’s bill, which does not have the automatic increases, so — as predicted on April 26th — he has turned to executive action to win an increase and remove an issue to be used against him in the fall.
These moves, along with the dramatic increase in education funding in his new budget, the infrastructure bonds package, and other moves still in the works are all part of a strategy to take the wind from the sails of the “anti-Arnold” movement that was so effective in last year’s special election.
Of course, Schwarzenegger undoubtedly also enjoys the phenomenon of having, essentially, the former chiefs of staff for both his Democratic gubernatorial rivals working for him now instead.
Linda Adams’ colleague in the Governor’s Office of Gray Davis was, of course, Susan Kennedy, now Arnold’s chief of staff. Kennedy was executive director of the California Democratic Party in the early 1990s, working for then state party chairman Phil Angelides.
Having both Kennedy and Adams on his team now gives Schwarzenegger unique insight into both candidates who would succeed him. It’s a classic psych-out move reminiscent of the former Mr. Universe’s dominant bodybuilding days.
After meeting this morning with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and other local officials and dignitaries to discuss L.A.’s semi-finalist bid to become the U.S. candidate city for the 2016 Olympic Games, U.S. Olympic Committee officials led by Peter Ueberroth headed north to San Francisco for part two of the California tour.
There they met with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his crew, and encountered a still more aggressive and together scene. San Francisco, under then Mayor Willie Brown, was the runner-up U.S. city behind New York in the last Olympic go-round. After New York won the U.S. nod in the wake of 9/11, the city’s bid essentially collapsed in a welter of missed deadlines and growing international enmity.
Here is the article in tomorrow’s San Francisco Chronicle. You will search in vain for the article in tomorrow’s Los Angeles Times.
UPDATE: Here is the L.A. Times story, which was not on the paper’s web site last night.
** 11:15 AM UPDATE: MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA AND ASSEMBLY SPEAKER FABIAN NUNEZ JUST WRAPPED UP A TWO-HOUR MEETING AT L.A. CITY HALL ON L.A.’S BID FOR THE 2016 OLYMPIC GAMES. Also in the meeting were U.S. Olympics Committee chief Peter Ueberroth, who ran the highly successful 1984 Olympics in L.A., and members of the city council and county board of supervisors.
But Los Angeles is not the only California city in the running to be the official U.S. candidate city. San Francisco is one of five semi-final cities as well, joined by Houston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Mayor Gavin Newsom will be launching his own charm offensive shortly. This is all in preliminary stages, with the final U.S. pick a few years away. But it does set up an interesting ongoing storyline, with the North/South face-off within California over the Olympics mirroring a possible future gubernatorial face-off. Needless to say, the new Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package helps both cities in their bids.
** Republican strategist Dan Schnur on the Democratic primary, Gavin vs. Antonio.
** WHERE IS ARNOLD ON THE NATIONAL GUARD BORDER QUESTION, REALLY? First he was against it, then he seemed to be for it, now maybe he is against it. And while he is on the fence, where is he on The Fence? What do we think about the compromise on illegal immigration that emerged from the U.S. Senate? The one that the Democratic candidates for governor are not talking about.
** HERE IS ANGELIDES’ BRAND-NEW ANTI-WESTLY WEB SITE.
** TWO MORE STRONG COLUMNS IN THE CAPITOL WEEKLY, IN ADDITION TO THE SCHNUR PIECE. One by Democratic consultant Darry Sragow, on politics not keeping up with technological and social change. The other by Republican analyst Tony Quinn, on how this year’s election will be All About Arnold. The world of Arnold is kind of a specialty here, so you will not feel left out.
** HERE IS THE NEW ANGELIDES ATTACK AD ATTACKING WESTLY’S ATTACK AD, FIRST REVEALED HERE YESTERDAY. It’s a good one. This ad is, despite rumors to the contrary, from the official Angelides campaign and not from the pro-Angelides independent expenditure campaign done by his associates. Westly, by the way, still doesn’t have his attack ads online. That ain’t good, folks.
** INCIDENTALLY, KUDOS TO THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS AND REPORTER KATE FOLMAR FOR THEIR NEW BLOG. Very nice coverage of the tit-for-tat attack ads in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. She actually had some of it published online before me. Interesting take, too. I’d fallen into the habit of holding things back until the next morning, secure in the knowledge I wouldn’t be scooped. Well, not any more …
** SCHWARZENEGGER IS MOVING UNILATERALLY TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE. As predicted here on April 26th, with his minimum wage bill stymied and not wanting to sign on to the Democrats’ indexed versions, Arnold is reviving the Industrial Welfare Commission and using it as a vehicle for executive action to raise the minimum wage by a dollar over nine months time.
** GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER WILL APPOINT A NEW HEAD OF THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TOMORROW MORNING. The new Secretary of CalEPA will be Linda Adams, a longtime Democrat with strong environmental credentials who served as legislative secretary to Governor Gray Davis, director of the Department of Water Resources, and chief of staff to Controller Steve Westly. More about this move to follow.
Movie director Rob Reiner has just put another million dollars into his universal preschool initiative on California’s June 6 ballot, Proposition 82. This brings the total to date from Reiner to some $2.2 million. His TV comedy pioneer father Carl Reiner has also previously contributed $500,000 to the campaign.
Also this week, Reiner public relations counsel Mark Fabiani, who ran damage control for the Clinton White House during the Whitewater controversy, confirmed that Reiner attended UCLA but did not earn a bachelor’s degree. This would make the Oscar-nominated director and Emmy-winning actor ineligible to be a preschool instructor. Under the terms of Reiner’s initiative, only those with bachelor’s degrees would be allowed to teach preschoolers their numbers, letters, and colors, a reason why many existing preschool programs oppose the initiative.
Prop 82 would levy a 1.7 percent tax surcharge on high-income Californians making over $400,000 a year to set up a $2.4 billion annual preschool program open to all 4-year olds. The initiative requires preschool instructors to have teaching credentials. Around two-thirds of 4-year olds already attend some kind of preschool program.
Reiner, who insisted that “This isn’t about me” during his unsuccessful attempt to defuse the controversy over his stewardship of the California Children and Families Commission at a March 14th appearance before the Sacramento Press Club, has disappeared from public view following his resignation under fire from the commission. This is his first major move subject to public scrutiny since his resignation, and comes as the initiative he put together and for which he raised most of the funds has declined in public opinion polling without any TV advertising being aired against it until Tuesday.
There is some gamesmanship in the form of the new million dollar Reiner contribution. $750,000 of the money is attributed to his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner. Her listed occupation is that of homemaker. According to the Internet Movie Database, she has one Hollywood credit, for a small role in the 1994 Steve Martin comedy Mixed Nuts, in which her husband co-starred.
By attributing most of this contribution to her, the Yes on 82 campaign could avoid describing Reiner as the initiative’s biggest backer on TV ad disclaimers.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and current and former Senate Presidents Pro Tem Don Perata and John Burton, both Democrats, oppose Prop 82. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Phil Angelides and Steve Westly both support it.
Looking at the fundraising and considering that most TV time for the final few weeks of the primary campaign is now booked, it seems likely that the Yes on 82 side will outspend the No on 82 side on television. But the spending edge is unlikely to be decisive. My estimate is that the Yes side will spend about $7 million on advertising to the No side’s $5 to $6 million.
Then the contest becomes about messaging and turnout.
The Yes on 82 side is running three TV spots. Two feature emerging Democratic superstar and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. One in English, one in Spanish. The other features teachers, as befits the California Teachers Association’s central role in the campaign. If the initiative passes, teachers unions stand to gain many new members.
The ads focus on the claimed benefits of preschool for later achievement in the K-12 system, especially with regard to reading. Villaraigosa talks about the impact of public education on his life and says: “Let’s invest in our kids, in their dreams” as happy little children hug one another.
The Yes on 82 campaign will also protest the No side’s use of actors to depict a teacher and principal in the opposition’s only TV ad. The No on 82 ad focuses on the creation of a new bureaucracy, the possible imposition of a “parent tax” (which is not explained) if the initiative is not providing enough money, and better uses for the funds to buttress the existing K-12 system. The opponents, however, generally oppose all tax increases and are not supporting a tax hike for that purpose.
… As the world turns in this dead heat race. (As New West readers had alerted me.) This is how you know that Westly message is effective.
My non-Democrat buyer source is getting me the intel. Along with the script.
Not that the Angelides campaign, which was in its usual meeting there in Sacramento, has acknowledged any of this yet. Notice how the campaigns have clammed up?
Meanwhile, back to last week’s episode of “Lost,” catching up before this week’s episode. Why does this title seem appropriate?
7:45 PM UPDATE: Here is the script for the latest Angelides attack ad against Westly.
STEVE WESTLY: I HAVE PLEDGED TO RUN A POSITIVE CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR.
NARRATOR: MAY 12TH. STEVE WESTLY BEGINS RUNNING NEGATIVE ADS. THE TRUTH? IT’S STEVE WESTLY WHO’S FOR HIGHER TAXES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS. TAXES ON SERVICES, MORE STATE TAXES, EVEN AN INTERNET TAX. YOU JUST CAN’T COUNT ON STEVE WESTLY. THAT’S WHY CALIFORNIA’S TEACHERS, FIREFIGHTERS, POLICE, HEALTH CARE WORKERS, AND SENATORS BOXER AND FEINSTEIN ALL SUPPORT PHIL ANGELIDES FOR GOVERNOR.
** AS SAC BEE COLUMNIST DAN WEINTRAUB JUST WROTE, AND I’VE MANY TIMES REPORTED, IT WAS CALIFORNIA SENATE PRESIDENT PRO TEM DON PERATA WHO GOT THE INFRASTRUCTURE BONDS BALL ROLLING IN THIS STATE. Perata had the important initial infrastructure bonds bill last year. And as you will see by clicking on one of the key pieces to the right, it was his allies and his pollster who provided needed impetus to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to get his Big Bang Bonds rolling.
** JUST AS PERATA HAD A UNIQUE ROLE IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE PACKAGE, SO DID ASSEMBLY SPEAKER FABIAN NUNEZ. Last summer, as first reported by someone, Nunez and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engaged in marathon negotiating sessions at the former action superstar’s LA mansion to try to avert the November special election showdown. They fell a little short of negotiating a way out, but found in the process that they could work together. That experience was crucial in bridging the gap this year.
** HERE IS SCHWARZENEGGER’S MAIN PROBLEM. The lack of public confidence in the Republican Party in the wake of the Iraq War, the destruction of New Orleans, and other woes.
** The Standard and Poor’s credit rating service has raised California’s credit rating from A to A+. Just before Arnold Schwarzenegger declared his candidacy for governor in the 2003 recall campaign, the state’s credit rating was BBB.
** IT’S A NOT SO FOND FAREWELL TO THE ORIGINAL HUMMER, POPULARIZED BY SCHWARZENEGGER.
** ACCORDING TO LA OBSERVED, L.A. CITY ATTORNEY ROCKY DELGADILLO REFERRED TO U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE “ANTON” (SIC) SCALIA several times during his appearances yesterday on LA radio station KPCC. (Scalia’s actual name is Antonin.) The man who would beat Jerry Brown — like that’ll happen — in the Democratic primary for California attorney general — had his aggressive campaign send out press releases in advance of his appearances yesterday attacking the former governor and current Oakland mayor for refusing to debate him for a fourth or fifth or sixth time (I lose track) on that radio program. Lucky Rocky, as it turns out.
In California’s hard-fought Democratic gubernatorial primary, yesterday was a day of planning for dueling bus tours and maneuvering around negative campaigning. Seeking press condemnation of his rival, Treasurer Phil Angelides mostly failed to get his backers to criticize Controller Steve Westly for airing the first hard negative TV spot of the campaign as, ironically, both campaigns are now attacking each other around the state in TV ads for airing TV attack ads. Each seeks the chance to replace Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Angelides asked his most prominent backers to criticize Westly for running his new TV ad hitting Angelides for his recent history of calling for a raft of tax increases beyond last month’s call for tax hikes on the rich and unspecified corporations. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, one of his four campaign co-chairs, came through with a comment on Monday, which went mostly unnoticed. California Labor Federation chief Art Pulaski sent out a measured statement yesterday. That was it. More about my hour-long conversation with Pulaski in a moment.
Meanwhile, in the wake of receiving scant press coverage of Angelides’ complaint about Westly going negative in the wake of last Wednesday’s sulfurous Democratic debate in San Francisco, the campaign has put out this ad. Although the campaign has not announced it, it is running in heavy rotation around the state. A sort of cinema verite effort, with apologies to European filmmakers for the thought, the Angelides ad consists of camcorder quality footage from somebody following Westly around at the state Democratic convention a few weeks ago, where he tried unsuccessfully to get Angelides to agree to wage a positive campaign but said that he himself would refrain from negative advertising. The ad has no preface, and its makers seem to assume that voters understand what is going on.
The Westly campaign, unsurprisingly, has used this ad as a rationale to launch another ad hitting Angelides, which is not available online. The treasurer, says this new TV spot, is “attacking Steve Westly because he opposes Angelides’ plans to raise taxes on working families.”
“Phil Angelides,” says the new Westly spot, “is attacking Steve Westly on negative campaigning, but here are the facts.” The ad shows Westly’s “positive campaign pledge” that the state controller had an aide cart around during his appearances at last month’s state Democratic convention. Angelides declined to sign that. (The ad doesn’t mention that Westly said he would refrain from negative ads until attacked first on television. Westly’s campaign is construing Angelides’ televised attacks in last week’s San Francisco debate as that attack.) The ad refers to Angelides’ likening Westly to various right-wingers in that debate. It closes by saying: “Personal attacks are nothing new to Phil Angelides,” citing a Washington Post column that described him as a “champion smear artist” and a San Francisco Chronicle story calling his tactics “reprehensible.”
Angelides tried to get his allies to criticize Westly, but it did not happen. Only House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made a statement on Monday, which was mostly ignored. Then state AFL-CIO chief Art Pulaski, whose state labor federation endorsed Angelides earlier this year, put out a statement yesterday calling on Westly to take down his ad scoring Angelides for his recent support of taxes that would impact most Californians.
Other Angelides supporters declined to participate. For example, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, co-chairman of the Angelides campaign, did light-heartedly debate state Senator Martha Escutia, Westly campaign co-chair, on Univision’s Voz y Voto for Angelides yesterday, but declined to issue a statement criticizing Westly for his TV advertising.
I spoke with Pulaski at length yesterday. Although he and most of organized labor are supporting Angelides in the primary, he and others such as state Democratic chairman Art Torres and Oscar-winning director/actor Warren Beatty had tried to get both campaigns to conduct positive campaigns. Pulaski and the AFL-CIO put together a formal “ethical campaign pledge.”
But both Angelides and Westly declined to sign it.
While he is critical of Westly for launching the first hard negative TV ad of the campaign, he agrees that Angelides had also violated the proposed terms of the ethical campaign pledge before that, certainly with his April 5th anti-Westly rally in Sacramento just prior to the first debate of the campaign, on Univision’s Voz y Voto program.
As he points out, it is difficult to determine who went negative first, and on what level.
My assessment is that, on the staff level, Westly went negative first with strategist Garry South criticizing Angelides. But that resonated among insiders. On the candidate level — which gains much more actual press and public attention — Angelides wins the honor with his rally of last month. Then on the advertising level, Westly went first with a hard negative ad. But Angelides preceded him with soft negative ads, talking himself up as having the only “honest” plan to fully fund education.
Pulaski, whose main purpose is to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger, agreed that he didn’t set out to be a high school principal to sort through the he said/he said of it all.
Here is the pledge he and other labor leaders unsuccessfully tried to get both campaigns to sign:
ETHICAL CAMPAIGN PLEDGE
I believe that negative campaigns have no value to contribute to the
democratic political process, particularly in a primary election.
Attacks on the opponent’s character and false or misleading statements
only fuel cynicism and apathy within the voting public.
I understand that defining the differences between my opponent and
myself in terms of our vision, policies, and record are appropriate
messages to voters.
However, attacks on character, any kind of prejudice, implied or
express, or false or misleading statements are inappropriate tactics
and do not inform voters about the policy differences between the
candidates. Derogatory descriptions or references to other candidates
are unacceptable in an ethical primary campaign.
I believe that I can win this election by running a positive campaign
and focusing on the merits of my candidacy. This is the way my
campaign will be run throughout the primary election.
I will not attack or defame my opponent(s) in the primary. My
campaign, including all staff, consultants and agents, will adhere to
this standard of ethics and refrain from any aspect of negative
campaigning in this race.
Should allies of my candidacy issue derogatory or misleading
statements concerning my opponent, I will issue a public statement disapproving their content.
I directly accept responsibility for any such negative conduct by any
of my staff, consultants or other representatives or agents, and
commit to run an ethical and clean campaign.
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