The upcoming decision by organized labor regarding what to do about trailing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides’ campaign is a fulcrum around which much of this year’s California elections will turn. Should they make the decision to go all out to rescue Angelides, their choice in the closely fought Democratic primary with cyber mogul-turned-Controller Steve Westly, that means most of their resources will be devoted to trying to defeat currently high-flying Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Potentially left in the balance would be the state’s massive infrastructure bonds package and several teetering Democratic candidacies for other statewide offices.
Labor beat Arnold Schwarzenegger once before, just last year, in fact, defeating all four of his “Year of Reform” special election initiatives. But they weren’t looking at a 20-point deficit, as in a recent private sounding by a Democratic pollster on the Schwarzenegger-Angelides contest. In fact, they began with the advantage last year, as Schwarzenegger precipitated his own decline with a series of maladroit political moves.
By this point last year, Schwarzenegger’s special election agenda was all but defeated. Labor had been pecking away with a sophisticated program of public relations and demonstrations featuring sympathetic public employees, and pounding away with waves of TV and radio advertising. One union alone, the California Teachers Association, spent nearly $60 million. The rest of labor more than matched that. It was the recall in reverse, with the forces that reigned during the late stages of the Gray Davis era back in the saddle. Or so it seemed.
Nothing like that is happening this year, nor can it. The teachers borrowed against their property in order to front the money generated by a three-year emergency dues surcharge. The union is still collecting those dues.
And the truth is that there is relatively little time, and much on a cluttered ballot. More to the point, cluttered air waves ahead, with high-stakes initiative campaigns and a raft of statewide candidates all crowding onto the air waves in the campaign’s closing weeks. At a time in which it takes more and more time for TV advertising to break through the media clutter and penetrate skeptical viewers’ consciousnesses. Add to that the reality that in the seven weeks remaining Schwarzenegger himself (he has not put any of his own money into his campaign yet) and his very rich friends could likely counter anything that labor might do. Throughout this period Schwarzenegger will be signing popular bills with Democratic legislators by his side and campaigning for the infrastructure bonds with Democrats in tow, belying the message that he is a do-nothing Bush Republican who can’t be worked with.
Yet Angelides is with labor pretty much down the line, unlike Schwarzenegger who, even in his leftward lurch offers a much more centrist variation on their concerns. The state treasurer worked hard for all those labor endorsements. Their associational value as much as anything carried him to victory in the lowest turnout primary election ever. It wasn’t the massive outpouring of activated union members. Westly usually had larger crowds than Angelides. Asked why his union wasn’t turning out large numbers of people for Angelides events, one labor leader explained that his members were used to Angelides and so didn’t feel the need to go see him speak in the primary campaign.
The union label comes with a price. Although Gray Davis was under the impression that he had agreed to only a few things in exchange for labor support in his 1998 race, once in office he was presented with a lengthy list by those nice labor guys who’d been flying around the state with him on the Gulfstream jets they rented for him.
Davis insisted on holding the line at first. And he did, at first, saying it would be unwise to have the state take on more spending commitments even though revenues were at record levels from a new high tech boom. The problem was that the new revenues might not hold up. But ultimately Davis did go along with legislative Democrats on new spending commitments and Republicans and Democrats on tax cuts.
The cyber boom went bust, and so did the state’s revenue boom, and the Democrats’ strategy to deal with the situation was to try to get Republicans to vote for tax increases. Which they would not do. The revelation that the state’s budget situation was even worse than had been advertised during Davis’s 2002 re-election was critical to the rise of the recall.
While Angelides continues his long dreamed of effort to make of Schwarzenegger a Bush clone, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata worries openly about the fate of the Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package on the November ballot, fearing that there won’t be enough money to drive the message home amidst a cacophony of competing messages.
In the post-Prop 82 era, having seen that taxing the rich for universal preschool and even an inoffensive library bond measure were rejected by a skeptical electorate, it’s a real concern.
Meanwhile, several other Democratic candidates for statewide office, notably secretary of state candidate Debra Bowen, insurance commissioner candidate Cruz Bustamante, and controller candidate John Chiang are locked in tight contests. Even two-time state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, a former gubernatorial candidate running for lieutenant governor, is in a closer race than the last public poll suggested, against popular state Senator Tom McClintock. Like Bowen, Bustamante, and Chiang, Garamendi’s campaign is underfunded. Labor can make a real difference in these races, as well.
** The campaign against the oil extraction tax for alternative fuels research initiative, Proposition 87 on California’s November ballot, is being sued by the proponents for obscuring the campaign’s source of funding in its TV ad blitz. The Yes on 87 forces note that the disclaimer on their opponents’ ads describe the campaign as a coalition of taxpayers, educators, public safety officials, etc., and then the two oil companies providing the bulk of the money to show the ad. Without saying, as most other such ads would, that those oil companies are the two biggest funders, Chevron Oil and Aera Energy, a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Shell.
Notice how it is getting popular to have teachers and cops and/or firefighters fronting campaigns? We saw it in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, when teachers, cops, and firefighters were used to front a massive TV advertising blitz for Phil Angelides‘ embattled campaign that was actually funded by the Sacramento development empire of his longtime patron, business partner, and campaign finance chairman, Angelo Tsakopoulos.
** The most famous and wealthiest investor in the world, Warren Buffett, will appear as a special guest at two big fundraisers for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on September 25th. First at an event in Los Angeles, then at an event in Laguna Beach, where the “Oracle of Omaha” maintains a home, Buffett renews his public affiliation with Schwarzenegger. The two men are old friends.
Although Buffett is a rather liberal Democrat, after announcing his candidacy for governor in the 2003 California recall, Schwarzenegger named him his chief economic advisor. The move came on the eve of a visit to California by President George W. Bush. Schwarzenegger’s adversaries dearly wanted to link him to the president, who lost California by a wide margin in 2000 but was not nearly so unpopular in the Golden State then as he is today. Schwarzenegger’s naming of Buffett subtly — or perhaps not so subtly — served to differentiate the former action superstar from the controversial president.
As such, it was a masterstroke. But it quickly backfired. Buffett, musing with a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, allowed as how he paid less property tax on his more palatial Laguna Beach home than he did on his house in Nebraska, and that indicated to him that California’s Proposition 13 property tax reduction scheme should be altered.
But Prop 13 is widely regarded as a “third rail” in California politics. Notice how Schwarzenegger’s trailing Democratic challenger Phil Angelides, who prides himself on his supposed straight talk, no longer supports taxing business property at a higher rate than residential property.
For Schwarzenegger, it was a big problem. He had few “issue anchors,” as advisor George Gorton called them, on the right, and was vulnerable to attack in Republican circles as a squishy moderate. One of the few he did have was a pending endorsement from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The late Jarvis, of course, was the author of Prop 13. Buffett’s undisciplined musings to the Journal pushed the prized endorsement out of Schwarzenegger’s grasp. He spent weeks getting it back, having to talk about his dislike of taxes regularly.
But Buffett did provide another boost for Schwarzenegger when the former Mr. Universe convened his economic advisory group for a meeting at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, then came out after with Buffett and former U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz to take questions from a sea of reporters. The thought of a former bodybuilder and action movie star appearing with the world’s greatest investor and a veteran powerhouse of presidential cabinets seemed more than faintly comic to many in attendance. But it quickly became apparent that Schwarzenegger was the dominant figure of the trio, adding crucially to his sense of political gravitas.
** A new Zogby poll (no, not the online, self-selecting one that is not credible, this one done with telephone interviews of a random sample) has Republicans moving back into a dead heat with Democrats nationally on the generic Congressional choice question. It also has President George W. Bush‘s job approval continuing to move back up, as do other polls. Does this mean that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, my longtime friendly acquaintance, is not to be, well, Speaker of the House? What does this do to the inevitable anti-Republican/anti-Bush tsunami that many have expected?
** Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, the Democrats’ nominee for governor in the replacement race phase of the 2003 California recall and one of the most prominent Latino politicians in the US, is in very big trouble. Running now for the post of state insurance commissioner, the official who regulates insurance companies operating in California, Bustamante was already in a dead heat in the last Field Poll with his Republican opponent, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Poizner. Now, according to the conservative Republican Flash Report, Poizner is launching an $11 million TV advertising campaign.
As the Democrats’ candidate in the replacement phase of the recall ballot, Bustamante was running a close race with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Until two things happened. Bustamante’s substantive problems became apparent. And Schwarzenegger decided to bust the race wide open. The former action superstar moved to make Bustamante’s shady multi-millions in funding from Indian casino tribes a central issue, attacking the casino tribes and Bustamante for it. It galvanized the race, crystallizing the issue of corruption and excess in California’s capital. Just prior to that, Bustamante’s own lack of knowledge was becoming apparent. For example, in answer to my questions at an appearance in Fresno, the lieutenant governor, who had served as Assembly speaker before that, showed a thorough lack of understanding of the state’s finances and recent political history.
Schwarzenegger won in a landslide in that multicandidate field, with 49% to Bustamante’s 32%, as the recall of Governor Gray Davis also swept to victory by an 11-point margin.
Fast forward to now. Although the insurance commissioner job seems like a Democratic job — bird dog an industry that makes a ton of money and has credibility problems with the public — Bustamante is not well-positioned to defend that notion. Yet no one in the Democratic Party wanted to tell him not to run for the job, in part because it could quickly become a racial issue.
Enter Steve Poizner. The entrepreneur made a fortune with technology allowing cell phones to be tracked. (There is a more benign way of putting that, of course.) A very bright, obviously, engaging man, he became a great favorite of Schwarzenegger’s in 2004 when the governor made his ill-advised try at beating Democratic candidates in Democratic-oriented legislative districts. All the candidates he backed were defeated. This marked the beginning of the end of his first bipartisan phase and his descent into the further ill-advised and poorly done special election initiatives campaign of last year.
But Poizner, who ran a close race in a Democratic Assembly district in the San Francisco Bay Area (spending $6 million), impressed Schwarzenegger. He was the only good thing that came out of the 2004 legislative races experience. The governor appointed him to the state’s powerful Public Utilities Commission, which oversees energy utilities and telecommunications. But he could not get confirmed by the state Senate. Not because he was disliked or unqualified, but because his tech investments were so entangled in potential conflicts of interest. Regretfully, Schwarzenegger withdrew the appointment.
Now Poizner is running for state insurance commissioner and is one of a few Republicans with a real shot at winning statewide office in California this year.
** Since it is late Friday afternoon, it’s time for that popular new NWN tradition, the Arnold Clone Movie. In this video, ripped off from Mad TV and placed (by an awful lot of people) on YouTube, the future governor discusses his then upcoming super-fantastic clone action movie hit, Stolen Identity III. Regretfully, the former Mr. Olympia does not discuss ethnological theory, computer security, or his favorite word in the Portugese language. Never let it be said that the governor of California is treated with anything but the utmost dignity here.
** While organized labor measures its moves against the governor they shellacked less than a year ago, Washington analyst Stuart Rothenberg issued this assessment in his Rothenberg Report: “Democratic prospects in three of the nation’s biggest states now look increasingly poor. In Texas and California, GOP governors appear headed for re-election. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in particular, has rallied in the polls and looks headed for a comfortable win over state Treasurer Phil Angelides (D).”
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger crowed over job growth numbers, up 37,000 jobs last month, 30% of the new jobs created nationwide, for a total of about 600,000 since he took office. Angelides had a different take, saying that by any measure people are struggling or falling behind in California.
** With the anti-oil tax initiative campaign starting to catch on under the weight of oil industry advertising spending, Hollywood producer Steve Bing on Wednesday contributed another $10 million to the oil extraction tax for alternative fuels research initiative, Proposition 87 on California’s November ballot. This brings his total to over $26 million for the campaign. Although there are other big givers, mainly from high tech, Bing is by far the main funder of the campaign, alllowing it to attempt to match fundraising on the no side, which is now over $35 million, almost all of it from the oil industry.
** I hear that two big-name East Coast pols are coming west next week for the California governor’s race. 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, to help Democratic nominee Phil Angelides try to consolidate his base. And billionaire media mogul-turned-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg News Service), a former Democrat contemplating an independent run for president in 2008, for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although Bloomberg is a fairly nominal Republican, that one is almost all about the independents. Like most of the Schwarzenegger campaign.
** Vietnam War hero and former U.S. Navy Secretary James Webb has closed within the margin of error in his Virginia race against U.S. Senator George Allen. Allen, a Republican presidential hopeful, screwed the pooch big time last month when he taunted a Webb campaign worker shooting his speech with a video camera. Looking right into the camera, as seen here, the brainiac pol repeatedly called the Webb aide “macaca,” a species of monkey, then said “Welcome to America” before beginning a discussion of terrorism. The campaign worker, born in Virginia and hence an American citizen, is of Indian descent. Webb, a famed novelist, served four years in the Reagan Administration as assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the navy, but is running now as a Democrat because of his disagreement with George W. Bush‘s Iraq policy.
** Just before the California Legislature ended its session last month, it passed a bill authored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to try to stop “piggybackers” and “hackers” from taking advantage of private computer networks, as recounted in this San Jose Mercury News story of August 30th, now in the pay archives.
“Steven Maviglio, deputy chief of staff for Núñez, said the speaker was inspired to write the bill after an eye-opening experience at his home last year: While Núñez and Maviglio worked late one night on a project, Núñez watched Maviglio pull up three networks while using a handheld device.
“‘He was amazed and bemused that you could take advantage of someone else’s service like that,” Maviglio said.”
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices have slipped further into the low 60s in dollars per barrel. U.S. inventories are up. And yesterday OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) lowered its forecast for future demand based on the expectation of slowing Western economies.
With the backfiring Arnold Schwarzenegger tape flap moving into the rear view mirror, it’s an open question as to when and if good things will begin happening for trailing Democratic challenger Phil Angelides. Now labor is contemplating if it might replicate in a matter of weeks what it had already accomplished by this point in last year’s special election: The defeat of Schwarzenegger. Meanwhile, former Governor Jerry Brown shoved the long idling race for state attorney general into gear, launching his TV ad campaign.
Top labor leaders and operators met yesterday in Sacramento to discuss what they might do to try to rescue the candidate they helped drag across the Democratic primary finish line barely in first place. Clearly they won’t be spending $150 million this year to defeat Schwarzenegger. There’s no time and they don’t have that much money to spend this year. And Schwarzenegger is back to the bipartisan centrist most voters thought they elected in the recall, supporting many issues labor itself supports, pulling the teeth from union members’ anger toward him. But Angelides is a longtime ally who is with them down the line.
As labor contemplates its moves, the purloined Schwarzenegger tape flap winds down, a week wasted for an Angelides campaign which had no weeks to waste. Angelides decided not to hang out to dry the two ranking staffers who performed the cyber trick (which Democratic spinners for an agonizing period of time could not explain because they did not know how to do it) which is said to have enabled them to access and download the governor’s private discussion and slip it to the Los Angeles Times. He went on the attack, fanning the dying embers of interest in what Schwarzenegger said.
For its part, the Times found itself in a dispute with powerful LA radio station KFI over its report yesterday which said that the station had disputed the claim that Angelides operatives had improperly obtained audio files. KFI put out a sharply worded statement: “Management at KFI AM 640 is responding to erroneous reporting in an article in today’s LA Times. KFI AM 640 has no knowledge of or opinion regarding the retrieval and publicizing of private Schwarzenegger conversations or meetings like those obtained by the Angelides campaign. The former producer, Jason Nathanson, and current host, John Ziegler, mentioned in the article speak for themselves and not for the station … Before the LA Times purports to speak for KFI on anything, they should contact station management before going to print.”
As the political world waits to see what, and how much, labor does for Angelides, Jerry Brown kickstarted the long-idling race for state attorney general. Brown, who appeared yesterday with First Lady Maria Shriver at an event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Brown-created California Conservation Corps, is launching his TV ad campaign, which will run through the November 7th election. Brown, frontrunner in the race for state attorney general, with a big lead in fundraising, is the current mayor of Oakland and a two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination. His ads are appearing first on cable outlets around the state. The initial ad buy consists of four ads, a positive ad in which the head of the California Police Chiefs Association, which has also endorsed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, talks about why Brown is the best choice to be the attorney general. Then there are three other ads. The other ads are all variations on one another, and all define Brown’s trailing Republican opponent, state Senator Chuck Poochigian, in negative terms as an extreme conservative. They variously define him as an opponent of gun controls, including on high caliber weapons (capable of shooting through police cars), abortion rights, stem cell research, and environmental protection. The ad with the police officer showing a .50 caliber bullet going through two police cars is particularly effective. All the ads are available for viewing here.
Brown’s trailing Republican rival didn’t have much of a response, but it was rather amusing and inventive if quite low budget.
As reported here, the California Republican Party on Wednesday had begun running a radio ad to help its nominee for state attorney general, state Senator Chuck Poochigian. The radio ad attacks Brown on crime. In particular, it charges that he allowed sex magazines in prison, was against the victims’ bill of rights and the death penalty, and that murders are up in Oakland. It’s unclear how large a buy there is for this ad. In June, NWN revealed that Poochigian had a TV ad, about which the campaign would give no details. It ran very sparingly in Sacramento and Oakland.
But the radio ad was already happening. A few hours after it was learned that Brown’s TV ads were beginning, the Poochigian campaign put out a video showing what it called Brown’s hypocrisy and inattentiveness to his job in Oakland where more murders are taking place. A Poochigian worker with a video camera caught Brown on tape coming and going from a fundraiser at the popular Capitol restaurant Spataro. The video flashes on screen and repeatedly cites an old Brown line about not going to campaign events that cost more than $100. What the Poochigian campaign does not note is that it is a classic smartass Jerry Brown throwaway line, uttered more than a decade ago in explanation for why he was not attending one of his sister Kathleen’s big fundraisers in her run for governor. Nevertheless, the video is an enjoyable little piece of guerilla campaigning, although Brown this time decided not to play to the camera for laughs.
** So it was probably not a fantastic idea for the LA Times to report this morning that “popular radio station” KFI “disputed the Schwarzenegger administration’s claim that the campaign of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides improperly obtained audiotapes of the governor.” Because that did not happen. As “popular radio station” KFI pointed out in a statement this afternoon. In its statement, the powerful radio station said this: “Management at KFI AM 640 is responding to erroneous reporting in an article in today’s LA Times (see excerpt below). KFI AM 640 has no knowledge of or opinion regarding the retrieval and publicizing of private Schwarzenegger conversations or meetings like those obtained by the Angelides campaign. The former producer, Jason Nathanson, and current host, John Ziegler, mentioned in the article speak for themselves and not for the station.”
KFI AM 640 Program Director Robin Bertolucci added: “Before the LA Times purports to speak for KFI on anything, they should contact station management before going to print.”
The Times news reporters and editors are acting like columnists here or, worse yet, bloggers. It’s so amusing. For those who don’t know, there is a longstanding enmity between the LA Times and KFI, dating back at least to the 2003 California recall and the newspaper’s late-breaking attempt to destroy Arnold Schwarzenegger. After the paper published its refried beans investigative reporting version of a 2001 Premiere magazine story, which in the hands of the Times became “Gropergate,” popular KFI hosts John and Ken hosted a big Schwarzenegger rally in Arcadia, a Los Angeles suburb, at eight in the morning. There were about 8,000 people there, most of them already seething with anger at the Times. The talk show hosts proceeded to whip up the crowd against the LA Times, to the extent that Times columnist Steve Lopez, who was standing next to me, removed his Times credential. If the Times Mirror Building could have been burned to the ground, that crowd would have done it.
In a follow-up program today on KFI, which the Times would be wise to cover but I predict they will not, additional portions of the Times story was refuted. But we’ll hold on that for now.
** Former Governor Jerry Brown is now launching his TV ad campaign, which will run through the November 7th California election. Brown, frontrunner in the race for state attorney general, is the current mayor of Oakland and a two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination. His ads will appear first on cable outlets around the state. The initial ad buy consists of four ads, a positive ad in which the head of the California Police Chiefs Association, which has also endorsed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, talks about why Brown is the best choice to be the attorney general. Then there are three other ads. The other ads are all variations on one another, and all define Brown’s trailing Republican opponent, state Senator Chuck Poochigian, in negative terms as an extreme conservative. They variously define him as an opponent of gun controls, including on high caliber weapons (capable of shooting through police cars), abortion rights, stem cell research, and environmental protection. The ads will be available for viewing later this afternoon.
1:40 PM UPDATE: Here is a link to the new Jerry Brown TV ads, viewable on YouTube.
** Columnist Dan Weintraub notes a key development, the rise of independent voters in California. The two major parties in California have the same number of voters today as they had in 1990, despite massive population growth.
** Switching course from his campaign’s position of the last two days, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides now defends his two top aides who surreptitiously accessed, downloaded, and slipped to the LA Times a tape of a private discussion with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. His campaign manager had maintained that she and the candidate were unhappy that they did so without any consultation with them and would be considering possible personnel moves. The gambit backfired. Some Democratic strategists and operatives have suggested that a lack of loyalty to his former communications director and research director would be unwise.
** Existing readers of New West Notes have found themselves in a new cyber neighborhood, Pajamas Media. PJM folks have found a new blog featured in their midst. NWN is one of the four new “frontburner” blogs for PJM, called PajamasExpress, joining those of distinguished foreign correspondent Claudia Rosett, acclaimed New York author Ron Rosenbaum, and eminent Stanford intellectual Victor Davis Hanson.
NWN, as you know, is in the midst of major tech changes. It won’t all go perfectly smoothly. But it is off to an awfully good start, thanks to PJM technology director Magnus Kempe, PJM CEO and co-founder (and Academy Award screenwriter) Roger L. Simon, and PJM Editor-in-Chief Gerard Vanderleun. Prior to the shift, NWN readers had already seen the addition of video, which has gone relatively well. Now NWN has moved onto a richer software platform, a more bullet-proof server, a much bigger network, better finance, and more promotion. While the longstanding relationship with the LA Weekly will continue, cyberjournalism is not the paper’s forte and NWN must keep moving forward. Pajamas Media, as PJM readers know and as NWN readers are seeing, is a global new media network. There’s more to come, in terms of capability and focus, here at NWN including Presidential politics.
** As the Los Angeles Times reports, a radio talk show harshly critical of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (actually, the Times does not mention that part) says it was able to gain access to the gubernatorial web server in question in the tape flap. A producer for the show says he was able to manipulate the web site to gain access to a hidden directory of audio tapes. However, the tapes he had access to were all speeches, press conferences, and the like.
** The California Republican Party yesterday began running a radio ad to help its nominee for state attorney general, state Senator Chuck Poochigian. According to an eagle-eared NWN reader, who heard it on a conservative station, it attacks the record of the frontrunner, former California Governor and current Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, on crime. In particular, it charges that he allowed sex magazines in prison, was against victim’s bill of rights and the death penalty, and that murders are up in Oakland. It’s unclear how large a buy there is for this ad. In June, NWN revealed that Poochigian had a TV ad, about which the campaign would give no details. It ran very sparingly in Sacramento and Oakland.
11:15 AM UPDATE: Here is that anti-Jerry Brown radio ad. It has a certain sneering tone. The Republican Party web site does not allow for a direct link to the ad, so click on the TV ad section and you will find the anti-Jerry Brown radio ad at the top.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices have fallen into the low 60s in dollars per barrel.
At last there will be a debate in the California governor’s race. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides has grumblingly agreed to debate Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday, October 7th, third anniversary of the California recall election, at a debate sponsored by the California Broadcasters Association (CBA) in Sacramento. Angelides tried to change the format set by the broadcasters group, which also sponsored the only debate the former action superstar participated in during his 2003 campaign and with almost the same format. Angelides wanted to stand at a lectern, but instead will sit at a table, as he actually has in past debates. He labeled the debate a “joint appearance” in a statement and said he would press for more debates.
There were some last minute attempts at maneuvering by the Angelides campaign, but predictably to no avail. The broadcasters group had given Angelides a deadline of 5 PM yesterday or else the debate would not take place. Since this is the only one the governor has agreed to, the state treasurer had little choice in the matter. The Angelides campaign agreed in a statement a few hours before the deadline, then campaign manager Cathy Calfo demanded no pre-set questions or notes. No pre-set questions was already part of the format, unlike the 2003 debate in which candidates received questions in advance. Reminded again by CBA head Stan Statham, a former rural Northern California TV journalist and ex-Republican legislator, that it was a take it or leave it situation, Calfo again agreed a few minutes before the deadline.
This haggling going nowhere had been going on for several days, on and off. Schwarzenegger finally agreed to the CBA debate at Sacramento State University, same sponsor and site as his 2003 debate, last week as his only debate. Angelides has accepted a raft of invitations, and had hoped to engage in 10 debates with the former Mr. Universe. But his campaign wanted to change the broadcasters format. The CBA refused and set 5 PM yesterday as a deadline for the state treasurer to say yes or no.
Something of a complication was the fact that the designated debate negotiator of the Angelides campaign, former state Senate chief John Burton, has twice been cited by the San Francisco Chronicle as agreeing to debate anytime, anywhere, accepting any debate. Which can be construed as agreeing to any reasonable terms, or as just a general statement.
Angelides’ acceptance, however, was a foregone conclusion. He is trailing in the race, and needs the debate to try to gain traction. It would have been crazy to refuse based on a format he’s participated in himself in past debates.
In my opinion, one debate is clearly too few. On the other hand, ten would bore the public to tears. Most incumbent governors running for re-election have engaged in only one debate, or none at all.
In the past 40 years, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown did the most debates. He did two with his Republican challenger, Attorney General Evelle Younger. Ronald Reagan did not debate Democrat Jesse Unruh. Republican George Deukmejian did not debate Tom Bradley. Republican Pete Wilson debated Kathleen Brown once. Democrat Gray Davis debated Bill Simon once.
And yes, October 7th is a Saturday. The lowest rated day for TV viewership. Even worse than Friday night, which is when Pete Wilson debated Kathleen Brown. However, since Schwarzenegger is involved, it will get plenty of coverage nonetheless.
How is it likely to go? Well, Schwarzenegger did well in 2003, essentially clinching the governorship with his performance. He was knowledgeable enough, engaging, and seemed like a credible governor. Which was what he needed to be to convince voters to make the move they probably wanted to make anyway, i.e., oust Governor Gray Davis and install the familiar movie star.
He got into a celebrated dust-up with right-wing-turned-left-wing commentator Arianna Huffington, which some analysts momentarily thought hurt him. “Arianna, I have the perfect role for you in Terminator 4.”
But that was mistaken, as I wrote immediately after the debate. Her partisan attacks on him backfired with most viewers and actually helped his candidacy as surveys showed that he won the exchange.
Now he actually is the governor, much more knowledgeable than he was then after a fast cram-course following the release that summer of Terminator 3 and his Tonight Show announcement parachuting into the topsy turvy recall race. Angelides is a skilled debater who probably won two out of his three Democratic primary encounters with ex-eBay honcho-turned state Controller Steve Westly. But Angelides was not a very appealing presence in those debates, coming off at times as hostile and negative. The primary had a record low turnout.
It will be interesting to see if he attempts to show off his knowledge accumulated in his decades of work in politics and government in the encounter with Schwarzenegger. That might be a final mistake.
** A chilling, as it were, report from NASA on the melting of the Arctic ice cap.
** Incidentally, here is the Cambridge Dictionary definition of the word surreptitious: adjective “done secretly, without anyone seeing or knowing.”
** Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides has grumblingly agreed to debate Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday, October 7th, third anniversary of the California recall, at the event sponsored by the California Broadcasters Association in Sacramento. Grumblingly because Angelides could not change the format set by the broadcasters group, which also sponsored the only debate the former action superstar participated in during his 2003 campaign. Angelides wanted to stand at a lectern, instead he will be forced to sit at a table, as he actually has in past debates. He labeled the debate a “joint appearance” in a statement and said he would press for more debates.
The broadcasters group had given Angelides a deadline of 5 PM today or else the debate would not take place. Since this is the only one the governor has agreed to, the state treasurer had little choice in the matter.
** A win for up-and-coming San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has helped settle a two-year long hotel strike that at times seemed to threaten the extraordinary tourism and convention business that mark the City by the Bay. Details are not yet apparent, but both sides gave in the process, which centered in large part on health benefits. The city’s top large luxury hotels were at times impossible to deal with because of noisy demonstrations by unionized hotel workers, who had cleverly been locked out of their jobs by the city’s mostly out-of-town hotel ownership. Newsom had the lockout ended, but negotiations dragged on.
“I am very pleased that an agreement has been reached,” Newsom said in a statement. “This is a deal that has overwhelming support from union leadership and management. This is a welcomed and positive conclusion to the two-year dispute that now allows San Francisco hotels to get back to the business of offering great service and hospitality to the millions of tourists and visitors that come to our city each year.”
The charismatic 38-year old mayor, famed for making San Francisco a brief mecca for gay and lesbian marriage and recently divorced from Fox News broadcaster Kimberly Guilfoyle, is regarded as a top potential governor or U.S. senator. He refused to enter many of the city’s leading hotels during the labor dispute. A wealthy businessman himself, he surprised the hotel industry which had backed him in his campaign against Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez. “Personally, I’m looking forward to going back to the hotels that were a part of this agreement and partnering with them on making our city’s tourism industry the best in the world,” said Newsom.
** Meanwhile, back at the ranch … Still nothing from the Los Angeles Times political blog on the backfiring Schwarzenegger tape flap they ignited with the tape slipped to them by the Angelides for Governor campaign.
** Yesterday evening, the board of the sprawling and failing LA Unified School District voted to deny Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s signing of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa‘s partial district takeover and reform bill at Roosevelt High School in East LA. The signing, which will also feature Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, was to have taken place at the high school from which Villaraigosa (seen here in this NWN video) dropped out as a teenager. But the school board, smarting from its defeat by the mayor over the school reform bill, came in at what it thought was the last minute to deny the event, which its members thought was locked in to a Thursday date.
Board members cited the objections of Roosevelt High’s principal, which sources deny, and perhaps more to the point, last week’s big political event at another LA school at which Villaraigosa finally endorsed fellow Democrat Phil Angelides for governor. After waiting in the heat, one schoolgirl fainted, only to be famously rescued by Villaraigosa.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices are in the low to mid 60 dollar per barrel range.
Welcome to the anatomy of a stunt. In which two high-ranking staffers for a politician known as a micromanager surreptitiously access, download, and leak to the Los Angeles Times a computer file of a purportedly explosive private discussion only to find it a minor flap followed by heated debate over the use of a cyber trick which Democratic spinners could not explain themselves for more than a day. That’s the situation with last Friday’s page one Los Angeles Times story over a tape of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger provided to the paper by aides to his trailing Democratic challenger, Treasurer Phil Angelides.
Dan Newman was the treasurer’s communications director during his Democratic primary battle with ex-eBay honcho-turned-state Controller Steve Westly; Sean Sullivan the campaign research director. As such, they are used to working directly with campaign manager Cathy Calfo and the candidate. Calfo says neither she nor Angelides knew what they were doing. Many Democrats privately doubt that. Both aides formerly worked with Democratic opposition research guru Ace Smith. In a campaign that has gone seriously south, they’re very smart, capable guys who wanted to turn things around. In the “oppo” culture they’ve been part of, that is frequently to be accomplished by expose.
This expose, however, while exposing politically incorrect language on Schwarzenegger’s part (surprising no voter who has followed his famously roguish career) — and the fact that his ethnological analysis seems lacking — was much ado about very little. The governor was quickly defended by leading Democrats like legendary former California Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, current Speaker Fabian Nunez and the chairs of the Legislature’s Latino and black caucuses, Martha Escutia and Merv Dymally, the state’s former lieutenant governor. Schwarzenegger appeared with his friend, budding Democratic superstar and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Democratic operatives themselves noted that you can hear much more offensive language in many political offices all the time, not to mention at public roasts.
Then came the question of how the feat was accomplished. Sophisticated political figures spinning on behalf of the Democratic campaign struggled with varying explanations. The file happened to show up on a public section of the governor’s web site. But it was never visible to anyone prerusing the public directory of the site, so a more sophisticated explanation was required. Trouble was, the spinners clearly did not know how the Angelides aides did it. The recording of the private discussion was somehow grafted onto a speech recording. The audio file in question was weblinked to a public file. The old computer network of the Governor’s Office had a backdoor directory which was accessible if you knew it was there. And so forth. Confusingly. Contradictorily.
Calfo herself, confirming on the record to the Sacramento Bee what others had said earlier in the day about her campaign’s role, said vaguely “that an Aug. 29 news release included a link to an audio file featuring Schwarzenegger speaking about Hurricane Katrina. That link, she said, led to other audio files from the Governor’s Office.”
Yet another high-ranking Democrat with knowledge of the governor’s old computer system, insisted that the feat was accomplished by clicking on an audio file and erasing it, leading to the discovery of a hidden directory of the system.
All this halting attempt at explanation makes it clear that the file was not actually accessible to the average computer literate person.
At an emergency press conference yesterday to deal with the flap, campaign manager Calfo, California’s former deputy state treasurer, took another stab at explaining how it was done. She said her senior staffers had “backed up” on a web link to get to the private audio file of Schwarzenegger. Well, no.
Others, who have actually done this sort of thing, say that you don’t back up on anything, you “chop off” the ends of web addresses in effort to find a higher-level computer directory otherwise invisible to the public.
A friend of the two staffers talked with me last night about it and said that it was what they did. Which may be so. But when we went to a few sites and I performed the trick, the sites didn’t necessarily respond the way he suggested they would.
A few things are clear about this flap. Schwarzenegger’s offense, which the LA Times deemed important enough to play on page one, wasn’t so offensive. (Some Democrats are saying there are far worse things on unreleased tape uncovered by the clever opposition researchers. But given their judgment about the import of this tape, that is questionable at best.)
The file in question was invisible to the average Internet user. It may have been gained access to by performing the “chopping” trick, or it may not. But some of the smartest people in politics made it painfully clear they had no idea how to do it.
Schwarzenegger campaign manager Steve Schmidt asks a very logical question. If it’s right there on the public server, why did it have to be leaked? Why didn’t any reporter notice it? Why didn’t the Times, with its large staff, get its own access to it, instead of relying on the Angelides campaign? And not mentioning that it was Schwarzenegger’s opponents who provided the information.
On the other hand, while these guys coming from the opposition research culture are very adept at getting information that most people can’t get, the governor’s security was clearly lacking. His server seems not to have required a sophisticated hacking algorithm in order to compromise it.
And why are private discussions — recorded to help speechwriters understand Schwarzenegger’s style and way of putting things — stored on a networked computer system? All networked systems are vulnerable to surreptitious entry now.
Was this “hacking,” a term of art that is not so specific as some imagine; was it illegal? I don’t know. There is certainly an ethical question about manipulating a computer system to gain access to private files. A clever person could probably manipulate my computer system to gain access to my private files, and I’d be quite unhappy if that were to happen. So there are outstanding questions about this incident.
But there is a larger question as well. And that has to do with the state of the campaign. As Democratic strategist Garry South, architect of the last two Democratic gubernatorial victories in California, has frequently noted, and many other name Democrats privately agree, the Angelides campaign has not done the sort of basic things that a highly viable campaign needs to do to win the California governorship. Angelides is competitive, to the extent that he is, only because he is a Democrat in a mostly Democratic state and he is running against a governor still recovering from an absolutely disastrous year.
Eight weeks before the general election, Angelides still has not introduced himself in any meaningful way to the people of California. Some of his most important policy positions are remarkably vague. There is no clear-cut theme to his candidacy. His TV advertising has been a series of reactive stunts: Terminator on a motorcycle going backwards, “A leader not an actor,” Schwarzenegger elected Bush and we’re still in Iraq. This misfired attempt to strike a big blow against Schwarzenegger by showing that he says mildly outrageous things, something everyone already knows about Schwarzenegger, was doomed to failure. It should have been no surprise that leading Democrats would spring to Schwarzenegger’s defense. They know that such things are said all the time — by Democrats — as Democratic strategist Bill Cavala’s comments below make clear. This is another stunt in a campaign of stunts. It is as though you decided to become a champion bodybuilder. And adopted as your strategy the regular practice of taking steroids. But not of lifting weights.
** In tomorrow’s morning leader there will be discussion of the technique some top Democrats maintain was used to manipulate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s web site in order to gain access to that taped private conversation. In other words, how Angelides campaign staffers “backed up” on a web link, as campaign manager Cathy Calfo put it, to get to the files. Also a brief discussion of the two campaign staffers who surreptitiously accessed and downloaded the taped conversation and provided it to the Los Angeles Times. Staffers Calfo dismissed as having done all this on their own without her or Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides’ knowledge. We’re looking at the anatomy of a stunt. Was this “hacking,” a term of art that is not so specific as some imagine; was it illegal? I don’t know. There is certainly an ethical question about manipulating a computer system to gain access to private files. A clever person could probably manipulate my computer system to gain access to my private files, and I’d be quite unhappy if that were to happen. So there are outstanding questions about this incident.
But there is a larger question as well. And that has to do with the state of the campaign. As Democratic strategist Garry South has frequently noted, and many other name Democrats privately agree, the Angelides campaign has not done the sort of basic things that a highly viable campaign needs to do to win the California governorship. Angelides is competitive, to the extent that he is, only because he is a Democrat in a mostly Democratic state and he is running against a governor still recovering from an absolutely disastrous year.
Eight weeks before the general election, Angelides still has not introduced himself in any meaningful way to the people of California. Some of his most important policy positions are remarkably vague. There is no clearcut theme to his candidacy. His TV advertising has been a series of reactive stunts: Terminator on a motorcycle going backwards, “A leader not an actor,” Schwarzenegger elected Bush and we’re still in Iraq. This dunderheaded attempt to strike a big blow against Schwarzenegger by showing that he says mildly outrageous things, something everyone already knows about Schwarzenegger, was doomed to failure. It should have been no surprise that leading Democrats would spring to Schwarzenegger’s defense. They know that such things are said all the time — by Democrats — as Democratic strategist Bill Cavala’s comments below make clear. This is another stunt in a campaign of stunts. It is as though you decided to become a champion bodybuilder. And adopted as your strategy the regular practice of taking steroids. But not of lifting weights.
** Angelides campaign manager Cathy Calfo says that neither she nor the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Treasurer Phil Angelides, knew that campaign staffers were passing on the tape of a private Arnold Schwarzenegger conversation to the LA Times. She says she is unhappy that they did so without permission and is looking at personnel moves. Former chief of staff to an Assembly majority leader, Angelides has a longstanding reputation as a very hands-on and involved person in his political shop. He spends a lot of time in his headquarters. In fact, many Democratic professionals fault the candidate for running his own campaign.
A few days before the November 1992 election, when Angelides was the chairman of the California Democratic Party, Angelides’ longtime political director, Bob Mulholland, confronted Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Herschensohn with an accusation that he attended a Hollywood strip club. Angelides said he had not known Mulholland would do that and deplored the incident, removing Mulholland from his post. But he reinstated Mulholland shortly after the election, narrowly won by then Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, one of Angelides’ staunchest backers in his narrow Democratic primary victory this year over eBay honcho-turned-state Controller Steve Westly.
** Bill Cavala is a longtime Democratic strategist who ran much of former California Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s political operation for many years. Writing in the left/liberal California Progress Report, he says of the Schwarzenegger tape flap: “The remarks themselves are what one sees at numerous “roasts” in Sacramento. Hardly newsworthy. But the coverage of the Times of the Governor’s race has been “unbalanced” (favors the Governor by focusing on horserace criteria), it was a slow news day, and here was an opportunity. So the Times went for it …
“Campaign espionage is a little silly. To be caught at it is usually as embarrassing as the revelation about the other side it produces – as it appears in this instance. For the LA Times to legitimize any piece of it is a good indication to me that we won’t miss ‘print’ journalism when it disappears in the near future.”
** The conclusion of the controversial ABC miniseries, The Path To 9/11, won Monday night’s ratings. This was in contrast to Sunday night, when Part I finished a badly beaten second behind NBC’s debut of Sunday Night Football.
** A few items today at the new LA Times political blog, including some commentary on Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday Night Football. But, um, nothing about the tapes flap which everyone else is talking about.
** Slate magazine explains why it never includes the Zogby Interactive poll in its polling surveys. “Since our scorecard includes only surveys based on random probability sampling, it does not include any of the Zogby Interactive/Wall Street Journal polls that were released today. These surveys are conducted on the Internet using samples drawn from a panel of online volunteers.”
** ** NWN, as you’ll see, is in the midst of major tech changes over the next several days. It won’t all go perfectly smoothly. You’ve already seen the addition of video, which has gone relatively well. However, the first try with podcasting didn’t work. Now NWN is moving onto a richer software platform, a more bullet-proof server, a much bigger network, and more promotion.
** WHAT WE KNOW NOW ABOUT THE PURLOINED GUBERNATORIAL TAPE FLAP. We know that the tape was obtained by a member of the Angelides for Governor campaign who found a way into private computer files. The audio file was surreptitiously downloaded to an Angelides campaign computer. It was then provided to the Los Angeles Times, which then placed a partial version of the longer recording on its web site and referred to selected portions of a transcript on its front page last Friday.
It was because he was writing this front page story that LA Times reporter Bob Salladay delayed the scheduled launch of the LA Times political blog from last Thursday to yesterday.
There is still a dispute between the account offered by the Angelides campaign and other ranking members of the Democratic Party as to how precisely the feat of accessing the private audio file was accomplished. More about that later.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices have dipped into the low to mid 60s (dollars per barrel).
** Continuous coverage of the new global insecurity on Pajamas Media (PJM). The U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria was attacked a few hours ago. The terrorist assault team was repulsed by Marine guards. Three terrorists were killed in the gun battle. No Marine casualties.
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