Another day of contrasts in the California governor’s race as two new public polls show big leads for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Appearing at the state’s annual women’s conference in Long Beach, which drew upwards of 10,000, meeting later with the Dalai Lama, the former action superstar projected exactly what he wanted. Meanwhile, trailing Democrat Phil Angelides held an anti-Iraq War rally at San Francisco State, drawing 150 to 200 students to hear his noontime call for bringing the National Guard home.
Schwarzenegger, as reported here yesterday afternoon, leads Angelides in the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll, 48% to 31%. He leads Angelides in the Field Poll, 44% to 34%. In both polls, the former Mr. Universe’s lead has increased. Neither poll is doing a push at this point to include “leaners” in the tallies.
In both polls, Angelides is drawing only around 60% of the Democratic vote. That will go up. (Field has Schwarzenegger at 77% among Republicans, which is low.)
However, not that the other news is especially promising for him, there are two bright red lights flashing for Angelides in the polls. First is that Schwarzenegger has brought his support level among Latino voters up to around one-third of the vote, which happens to be his target and what he got in the 2003 recall election. The second is that Angelides has a net negative image score; in other words, more likely voters view him unfavorably than view him favorably. (Schwarzenegger, of course, has a net positive image score.)
The allies seeming to ride to his rescue, in the form of the public employee union coalition and the state Democratic Party now using unlimited contributions to run TV ads on his behalf, are running only negative ads about Schwarzenegger. They are not doing anything to improve Angelides’ image with the electorate. You simply cannot be elected governor of California if more voters dislike you than like you.
The scale of these “independent” campaigns on the Democratic nominee’s behalf remains unclear. His allies are playing it cagy. What is known about the public employee union ad buy is that only $4 million has been bought so far. (They won’t say over what period of time.) While the ads are good, a clever rehash of the ads attacking Schwarzenegger last year in his disastrous special election, that amount of money is not going to do much in this environment.
Of course, we all expect much more than $4 million to be spent, and there are various scenarios floating around that I am investigating. But here is the problem. TV advertising rates have jumped up 40% to 45% over the past month or two, as stations take advantage of the big money ad wars over the oil tax and tobacco tax initiatives. So the interests proposing to ride to Angelides’ rescue are getting a lot less bang for their buck than they would have earlier in the year.
In other words, the $4 million that the Alliance for a Better California (ABC) is currently spending on the two TV ads helping Angelides by blasting Schwarzenegger is the equivalent of less than $3 million during the summer.
The fact that Angelides would have no legal standing as governor to pull the California National Guard — which as discussed here over the weekend when Angelides announced the gambit to two newspapers he can’t because the troops are now in federal service — out of Iraq probably doesn’t account for the relatively small crowd he drew. A noontime anti-war rally on a college campus in America’s most liberal big city should be a surefire winner, and Angelides was joined by popular Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Angelides has had trouble drawing crowds throughout this campaign. This despite the fact that he is backed by the labor unions and has on his staff one of the best advance men in the country, Ed Emerson, former head of advance for former President Bill Clinton and former Governor Gray Davis. Despite his relative lack of charisma, Davis consistently drew bigger crowds than Angelides has. Indeed, Steve Westly generally drew bigger crowds than Angelides in their very closely fought Democratic primary last spring.
The state treasurer will try again with another noontime college anti-war rally on Thursday, this time in his home base of Sacramento. NWN will provide a video documentary of the event.
Today Schwarzenegger signs the landmark global warming bill at an extravaganza on picturesque Treasure Island, in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Among others joining Schwarzenegger at the bill signing is New York Governor George Pataki. There will also be an NWN video documentary of that event.
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The Democratic party and the unions have a very serious decision to make about how to use their scarce resources to save the down ballot candidates and the initiatives. The consultants around Angelides have to risk getting fired and tell him it is time to give a positive message about why he should be governor. He can’t win but he can avoid further embarassment.
How did California get stuck with such a terrible Democrat? That’s a blue state out there.
Welcome to California Jonas. Here the Democrat Party is a left-wing cabal of public employee unions, trial lawyers and environmentalists. They used a questionable independent expenditure campaign to run off the moderate billionaire businessman who could have attracted middle of the road voters and paid for most of his campaign out of pocket change.
Now they are left with an ideologically pure loser who never had a chance to beat Arnold. Last year’s Special Election produced a “King of the World” hubris that got the best of them and they will now suffer by running a hopeless, expensive campaign for the final six weeks. When it is all over, they will tell everyone their humiliating loss was George Bush’s, the gasoline market’s and celebrity-blinded Democrats fault.
Stay tuned for the blizzard of Bush/Arnold hating ads and a flurry of insipid, insulting Hail Mary political stunts that will strip away Angelides’ last shred of political dignity.
Such is the politics here in the land of fruits and nuts.
Jonas Blaine:
I think the biggest problem is relativity. Usually, the Republicans can be relied on to choose their wackiest right-winger (since in the last decade or so that’s all they’ve had on their bench), and so, by comparison, the Dem tends to look better to the DTSs — or, as I call them, the Middle Class.
Pete Wilson was the last Republican who had any statewide reputation who could claim he was a moderate with any plausibility at all. (McPherson and Poizner are the next generation). And even Wilson gave his party heartburn.
This year, due to an odd aligment of the stars, the Reeps had a true moderate forced down their throat, and have the advantage despite themselves.
All Phil has is labor and anti-war college students, and the more he appeals to them, the more he makes Arnold look like the best option to the DTSs. He’s even turning off Dems who lean toward centerism. No one running statewide in California can win unless they can get the DTS vote, which is now the size of a respectable third party. It’s not a party, of course, and they don’t have any candidates because by definition, they’re not organized. But they’re what this state’s statewide politics is about. And Phil doesn’t have a clue about how to reach them.
Jonas:
The short answer to you question: he was chosen by the state’s Democrats. It was an extremely low turnout and all the usual interest groups which comprise the California Dem. Party – public employee unions, so-called environmental groups, labor, etc. etc. hauled Phil’s carcass over the line first, with a huge help from one of the Central Valley’s largest developers – who is Phil’s patron.
But you can look at it this way – usually it’s the Reps. who nominate a far-right candidate who is the creature of the party’s special interests. This time, it was the Dems.
It’s been said before and is somewhat obvious, but it bears repeating: crowd size is…or can be viewed as a canary-in-the-coalmine for a campaign, & whether people think the candidate hoping to draw people to their events is a winner or a loser.
who wants to spend their lunch hour listening to a guy headed for a double digit defeat? not me.
what was true of Lungren in 98 is true of Angel Eyes today: if people who are not part of the hard-core base think you are a scary, judgemental dude headed for a big loss in November, they wont turn out to see you. they didnt turn out for Dan and they’re not turning out for Phil.
correspondingly, if you are perceived as a winner, especially one with lots of star power and personal popularity, people will ditch work in droves to come see you.
and it definitely does not hurt to have the Dalai Lama on your side.
a bit hitter, the Lama.
the Dalai Lama is a symbolic figure for many but he appears to be allowing himself to be used by politicians to make them look like they care. One supposes he has some inside knowledge on the transcendence of sprituality over politics with his genial laughter, but how this benefits the Tibetan people remains a mystery.
Are he and Arnold Schwarzenegger just good examples of the cult of personality, or the triumph of image over substance? Sacreligeous!
Doesn’t Angelides have any friends in high places he can count on to boost his image before judgement day?
As someone who admires Phil and will vote for him, I feel for the guy. For he finds himself in that worst of all political situations: counting on his opponent to screw-up, in order to become competitive. It may happen. The Governor – in spit of his well honed PR operation – does screw up and has gotten his butt “kicked” for it. But they have him on a short leash and more likely than not, he’s going to stay on script for the next 6 weeks.
With what little time and money is left, PA needs to accentuate the positive and give DTS a reason to vote for him. That and a “I’ll protect the middle class from the excess of concentrated wealth i.e. Arnold and his friends” message and he might have a shot at making this race competitive. That alone, would help the down ticket races, who fear demoralized Democrats staying home.
Just as an aside, the real crime here is that the broadcasters are allowed to raise their rates every election cycle. Broadcast signals are a limited resource belonging to the public which are suppose to be regulated “in the public interest, convenience and necessity.” Broadcasters should be dropping their rates every election cycle, not raising them. When people complain about big money in politics, they should be blaming the broadcasters, since it’s media ads that demand so much of the “corrupting money” that we all like to bitch about. And really, if the airways were regulated in the public interest, convenience & necessity, there would be no need for all that big money.
If Prop 89 passes – and that’s a big if – the lowering of ad rates during elections is really a must if we don’t want public financing to become nothing more than a trough for the broadcasters.
Er, I wouldn’t be counting on the passage of Prop 89, the Clean Money initiative.
More on that later …
Pretty well done analyses there, folks.
The wrong Democrat in the wrong race at the wrong time against the wrong governor.
Today, the Schwarzenegger global warming bill signing.
Tomorrow, the Angelides anti-Iraq War rally.
When will we see Nelson Mandela campaigning with Gov. Schwarzenegger?
“Schwarzenegger has brought his support level among Latino voters up to around one-third of the vote, which happens to be his target and what he got in the 2003 recall election.”
I am very pleased about this. First of all, because Arnold has proved to be the better “education” candidate for immigrant children …(his support for small schools, more charter schools,and of course Mayor AV’s education reform plan for LA Unified….and secondly, I am pleased, but not surprised as the the Latino community is very diverse …However, because so much is at stake in regard to immigration policy…it would be a major setback for the entire community if the majority registered and voted for only DEMS or Reeps.. when Clinton spoke at LaRaza he said something very interesting …that the Latino voters would have a moderating impact on both parties…I think he is right…I hear from the community leaders that I deal with that Arnold’s campaign has done serious outreach in the community…and I am sure he has learned a lot, and as a result we will all see at least here in California,many positive advances both in education and healthcare in the next 4 years that will assist and advance immigrant children and their families.
A few top Latino Democrats tell me that Schwarzenegger’s advisor Arnoldo Torres has been a whirlwing in their community.
>when Clinton spoke at LaRaza he said something very interesting …that the Latino voters would have a moderating impact on both parties…I think he is right…I hear from the community leaders that I deal with that Arnold’s campaign has done serious outreach in the community…and I am sure he has learned a lot, and as a result we will all see at least here in California,many positive advances both in education and healthcare in the next 4 years that will assist and advance immigrant children and their families.
Thanks, Bill. Glad you appreciated the analyses.
As to the propositions, I wouldn’t count on any of them passing. When, due to the sheer number of the propositions, people become overwhelmed and confused, they tend to vote “NO” on everything. I think the stage is set for that, sorry to say…
ON: Arnold’s advisor Arnoldo Torres
Arnoldo Torres is very respected and I hear the same from seriously committed community leaders…nothing but praise.
I see the California Plurality Report answer to that is to attack Schwarzeneger. Don’t those guys ever get out of spin mode?
Can’t they suggest something positive for Angelides, like for him to say he finally knows what the Sensenbrenner bill is … lol
CMR appears to be mainly targeting people who make a living out of Dem politics, e.g,consultants, campaign workers,Dem party activits and be a resource for the press…if that is who you are, then the site should be useful. Everyone else will have to wait for HOT SOUP! just and hang out with Mr. Bradley!
Advice to Angelides: “Immigration is not a top issue to Latinos – they’re already here, what do they care?” CMR 9/27 Andre Pineda
Really …well, what can one say…you learn something new every day….
That is one cynical post, from stem to stern.
Also, not true with respect to the very point you raise. Although Latinos are more concerned with border security, I’m afraid, than you think.
Mr. Bradley,
I am very concerned about Border Security. The Latino communnity who have many sons and daughters in Iraq at this moment fighting insurgents are very concerned. Further, I do not know about you, but I know no one that does not understand that terrorism is a real threat and we need security and control at our ports and borders. Also, the hard working family orientated Latino population of the US is often the primary victims of the criminal element that slips across the border…So, YES, I understand that Latinos are just as concerned as all Americans are and should be, that we have secure borders. The legislation that came out of the Senate ADDRESSED Border Security. IF it had been allowed to go to conference, and negotiated compromise would have been found,as such, border security would have most likely been enhanced and citizenship track would have gone back to the original format that came out of the Judiciary Committee (i.e.,dropped Hagel Martinez amendment) …but the Republican led House was hell bent on making sure that there was no negotiations and now is just passing enforcement only bills and even trying to circumvent the legislative process to achieve their goals.
The post at CMR was on many levels deeply disturbing for me, personally ,disheartening.
“Yesterday (9/26) interfaith leaders and Senators McCain, Salazar, Lindsay Graham, Kennedy, and Specter held a press conference calling for comprehensive immigration reform instead of piecemeal enforcement measures. ” Justice For Immigrants”
My daughter was at a reception attended by a Big City California Mayor, she overheard him being asked Why Angelides was doing so poorly in light of the special election results. The Mayor (a Angelides endorser) said, “Spend a day with the candidate and you will be able to understand.”
Hmm, let’s see. A Democratic mayor of a California big city. Male. Spent a lot of time with Angelides. This is narrowing down …