10 PM UPDATE: New Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll now off embargo.
Schwarzenegger by 18 over Angelides in the governor’s race. Schwarzenegger’s lead has gone up by one point in the last month. The big bipartisan infrastructure bonds are on the bubble. More in the comments section and tomorrow in the AM leader.
DESPERATE MOVES ARE NOT PAYING OFF for California’s most powerful statewide offices. Former Governor Jerry Brown easily fended off a legal gambit by backers of distant Republican challenger Chuck Poochigian to block the counting of votes for the Oakland mayor as attorney general. And Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides finds himself trailing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 53% to 35%, in a new Democratic poll.
Angelides touched on gun control yesterday as what his advisor Steve Maviglio called a “silver bullet” issue. It’s the latest in a string of “silver bullets” which turn out to be blanks. Nothing has worked for Angelides. This one won’t, either. In fact, although Maviglio blogged that Angelides had raised the issue yesterday, the treasurer actually shied away from it in a Sacramento coffee shop appearance. Perhaps he sensed that quarreling with Schwarzenegger over two very technical bills would not detract from the former action superstar’s standing as a gun control supporter. Or perhaps he realized that his past support for a ban on handguns could quickly become problematic for him.
In any event, the string of stunts indulged in by the Angelides campaign has availed the former state Democratic chairman not at all. He trails Schwarzenegger by a whopping 53% to 35% margin in a highly credible private Democratic poll. His new biographical TV ad has not worked. The millions spent by the Democratic Party to tie Schwarzenegger to unpopular President George W. Bush did not work. The millions more spent by the Alliance for a Better California public employee union coalition, attempting to stir the embers of anger over Schwarzenegger’s 2005 special election, did not work.
As a result, with two weeks until the official postmortems begin, Angelides is headed for a landslide defeat, in what has seemed to be one of the most Democratic states in the nation, in the midst of a very good year for Democrats nationally.
Also proving that desperate moves to torpedo rivals and curry favor are best practiced by desperate housewives is state Senator Chuck Poochigian, the Republicans’ badly trailing candidate for state attorney general.
As negative as the Angelides campaign has been to such little avail, the Poochigian campaign has been even more negative. The entire campaign has been about an unremitting attack on Jerry Brown. While Poochigian himself has been largely off-stage, his campaign has issued an endless stream of nasty missives about Brown, as well as a series of ads that have diminished as money has run out. In that respect, the Poochigian campaign has been more focused than the Angelides campaign, which flits from issue to issue, theme to theme, and slogan to slogan (four or five so far).
Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang noted the position of country registrars of voters and the California Secretary of State that the relief sought by the plaintiffs — disqualifying votes cast for Jerry Brown — would be extraordinarily disruptive of the election and, even were it possible, would be more costly to taxpayers than the alternative, plaintiffs having argued that taxpayer concerns were at the core of their complaint.
In fact, during the hearing, the plaintiffs’ lawyer withdrew the request that votes not be counted for Brown. Which was the entire point of the move, other than an attempt for publicity. The request for an injunction failed, as did the effort to expedite matters. Plaintiffs’ lawyer was left agreeing the suit would require major amendments if it were to continue.
The lawsuit had other odd aspects. California’s secretary of state, who oversees elections, should have been named in the suit because his office certified Brown for the ballot. But he was not. Indeed, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, a Republican appointed by Schwarzenegger, petitioned successfully to become a party to the suit, supporting Brown’s position that the remedy sought by the plaintiffs be dismissed by the court. As did current state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
The chief named plaintiff, Contra Costa County Republican Chairman Tom Del Beccaro, was not on hand. Poochigian himself was 175 miles away in Fresno, revisiting his endorsements by some Central Valley law enforcement figures.
At the core of the issue is whether or not Brown is qualified to be state attorney general. The Yale Law School graduate has been a member in good standing of the California Bar since 1965, admitted to practice before the state Supreme Court, for which he once clerked. Legal experts view this standard of admission for five years prior to election as the standard of eligibility.
However, Brown has for most of his tenure as mayor of Oakland, in which it would be improper for him to practice law, saved on high bar association fees by going from active to inactive membership. Backers of Poochigian, who by all measures is headed for a big loss in the election, seized on this inactive status to argue that Brown is not qualified. Had Brown wanted to practice during his inactive Bar membership status, all he would have to have done is fill out a form and pay additional membership fees and his active status would have returned automatically and immediately.
I heard of this ploy weeks ago, looked into it at the time and determined it had no merit. Of course, a serious legal bid to disqualify Brown would have taken place months ago, before ballots were printed and systems for the election set in place. This legal bid took place at the last minute, with Poochigian having taken his shot at Brown and failed, trailing by a huge margin in private polls in both parties.
Hoped for independent expenditure (IE) campaigns for Poochigian also, as reported here, have not materialized, with the smart money recognizing that even with a big win looming for Schwarzenegger, the possibility of defeating Brown approached the vanishing point.
So the IE action on the Republican side is with other candidates; namely controller nominee Tony Strickland and lieutenant governor nominee Tom McClintock.
Big casino tribe money is flowing to the aid of Strickland, as reported here over the weekend. And Intuit, the tax software giant (TurboTax), is also helping Strickland. His Democratic opponent, John Chiang, has been supportive of efforts by Controller Steve Westly to simplify taxes for some taxpayers by allowing them to use a state estimate of their obligation. The program, called Ready Return, is popular but was killed in the Legislature under the weight of heavy lobbying on behalf of Intuit.
Labor, which has been focused on propping up Angelides, is responding by “reprogramming,” as one senior Democrat puts it, money for IEs to help Chiang and John Garamendi, the longtime major Democrat locked in a very tight race for lieutenant governor with McClintock.
But Republicans have gotten the jump on the Democrats here. It remains to be seen if the late-breaking Democratic effort will work.
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Mr. South:
“Democrats have controlled (Controller’s) office since 1975, and to lose it now –especially with a Republican governor for the next four years — would be a political and policy disaster.”
But other than than Philbots that plagued Bradley, most everyone on this blog knew Phil’s goose was cooked long ago.
Why weren’t union and Democratic resources sent to reinforce our defense of the Controller’s office and take McClintock out once and for all?
If the prison guards have anything left with the remainder of their advance media buy, please use it for Chaing.
BTW, Strickland is going to be real fun to deal with when the state budget is late…
“How to stand with firefighters as you go down in flames?”
Kandy,
Yawn! Have another drink, you need one.
Robert Redford was in California for the yes on 87 campaign. Redford makes my TV melt.
The Claremont Collier? Is that a daily or weekly? Link?
The Courier is a weekly, it’s close to a supermarket rag.
Here is the link: http://www.claremont-courier.com/pages/Topstory1025.2.html
New Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll now off embargo. Schwarzenegger by 18 over Angelides in the governor’s race. Schwarzenegger’s lead has gone up by one point in the last month. The big bipartisan infrastructure bonds are on the bubble. More tomorrow in the AM leader.
This, of course, reflects NWN’s longstanding reporting and analysis of the race.
Will the Angelides crowd finally stop lying?
my 20% still looks good thanks for the heads up Bill:)
carole w…1 of my fav movies is Out of Africa with RR….that always makes my TV melt…the music is also wonderful I’ve bought the CD twice now I enjoy it so much
OMG…they just showed a TV Ad for Cruz in LA on CBS…it was a 15 second ad….they showed 2 15 second ads for Cruz with a prop ad in between….guess they didn’t cancel all the buys
It looks like John Chiang is finally going to get the help he needs to win this race!…but I think he is making too many appearances with Phil! …that’s not good…he needs to do what Garamendi has done…put some distance between him and Phil…Phil is seen as a loser and a downer …That’s not you, John Chiang!!!! heck, maybe he should even get himself a horse!…I love Garamendi’s rancher/cowboy AD!
Well, I saw the new John Chiang TV ad. I’m not in love with it.
There is no margin for error at this point, since this has been allowed to drag.
“Well, I saw the new John Chiang TV ad. I’m not in love with it.”
I saw the one I assume you are talking about during evening news while on a treadmill at the my club for the first time tonight! …it’s not a good AD at all!…he does not even smile…and he has a great smile…it has no energy…no bounce!…people do not understand why this office is important …he will need to somehow say why it is so very important in 30 seconds!
People don’t have to smile to show leadership. Actually, voters sometimes distrust politicians who smile too much, unless there is a good joke going.
He needs to look decisive, yet somewhat approachable. He needs to say … something specific about what he will do.
The ad is totally generic. It looks cheap, I don’t remember a thing that was said, just some generic rhetoric.
Well I think he should smile and yes it looked very cheap…
He will have more cash but
Can he cut a new AD?..get it on the air in time to have any impact…I don’t understand why this race is so close?…Strikland is a conservative, he is not familiar name like McClintock… Where are the DTS moderates and DTS DEM leaners? they could not possibly be supporting anyone else but John and then the Dem base hiis his so why is he not in the lead…What’s going on? Maybe the polls are wrong?
Speaking of ads…I thought that Michael J. Fox’s new ad in MO was pretty powerful. Even if Limbaugh did laugh at it…or was this already covered?
Your Democratic leaders sound like lunkheads.
Barbara, the reality is that John Chiang is unknown and the office he holds is even more obscure.
Prior to this year, even I had no idea what John Chiang looked like. He could have dropped through the skylight into my office and I would have had no idea.
In a race in which no one is paying attention — and which Democrats have been slow to get started — these things can happen.
Rich, I haven’t reported on Michael J. Fox’s TV ad in Missouri. I also left out, more unaccountably, Robert Redford’s appearance yesterday for Prop 87.
Not to mention the North Korean nuclear situation.
Lunkheads is too kind a word for the Democratic leaders who pushed for Angelides.
When Einstein mentions that the “Dems won every race last time” he neglects to mention even the incumbents only did so by fairly narrow margains. Yes, that partly reflects the dynamics of the top of the ticket Davis v. Simon match. But I wondered in looking at the results whether the Reps could be more competitive if they had better nominees (i.e. more moderate).
I think why the Reps are doing so well this time is complicated (I mean McClintock is far from a moderate yet he has Garamendi in a dead heat, last I heard). Maybe one problem is after the last election many Dems thought they had an electoral lock? Is this a case of poor post 2002 election analysis among many consultants for the Dems in designing campaigns for statewide races this year?