Unions’ New Ad Directly Attacks the Gov.

The sheer volume of labor advertising against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made it easy to miss a recent shift in union tactics to defeat his initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballot.

After weeks of sticking to ads targeting his ballot measures, one by one, labor resumed direct attacks on the Republican governor Thursday with a television spot mocking a Schwarzenegger appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”

The return to concentrating more on the man than on his ballot measures highlights the hope of labor leaders that broad public disappointment in Schwarzenegger can doom his entire election agenda. But it also raises the question of whether a strategy focused so tightly on him can fully succeed, now that millions of voters are sorting through the complexities of the election’s eight ballot measures.

Among the uncertainties are the perplexing nature of the governor’s ties to each ballot measure. He proposed three of them and has adopted a fourth as his own. The Republican Party and pharmaceutical lobby are promoting his support for two others, along with his opposition to another.

The campaign against Schwarzenegger is also fractured. Unions are spending millions to defeat three of his ballot measures. Democratic leaders are struggling to raise enough money to fight a fourth -- and that effort has split into two distinct campaigns.

These tangled approaches will force voters to rely more than usual on cues to guide their ballot choices, analysts say, and the biggest cue of all is Schwarzenegger.

“People go with who they trust and who they distrust on initiatives,” said Thad Kousser, an assistant political science professor at UC San Diego.

That axiom is central to the ad strategies of the governor, the unions and the other main players in the election.

Each campaign has sought to align itself with popular groups -- most visibly teachers, nurses and firefighters, while linking its opposition to those with a less favorable public image, such as prison guards, lawyers and Schwarzenegger.

In the governor’s latest ads, he has borrowed a favorite labor device, featuring teachers and law enforcement officers to vouch for his proposals.

“There’s really a fight here for credibility,” GOP strategist Arnold Steinberg said.

In the union ads flush with rescue workers, desk-bound bureaucrats are nowhere to be found. Yet a stereotypical civil servant is prominently featured in a pharmaceutical industry ad against Proposition 79, a drug discount plan that it depicts as “a bureaucratic mess.”

“The bureaucrats are a little less accessible, and people don’t empathize with them as much,” said Ann Crigler, chairwoman of USC’s political science department.

Trial lawyers are another target of the pharmaceutical firms’ ad campaign. A drug-company mailing to voters shows two sharply dressed lawyers reveling in a champagne toast in a limousine, with a red-ink caption warning of “thousands of frivolous lawsuits” if voters pass Proposition 79, sponsored by labor and consumer groups.

“All of these things are cues,” Crigler said.

In another brochure mailed to voters, the state Democratic Party plays off the low public esteem for politicians.

“Tell the power-hungry politicians to keep their hands off!” it says in urging Californians to oppose Proposition 77, a measure that would revamp the system for drawing district boundaries for state and federal lawmakers.

The mailing does not mention that the current system enabled legislators to draw election maps that protected scores of incumbents from losing their seats.

In Schwarzenegger’s newest ads, he seeks to redefine the public image of the government-employee unions he is battling as something other than teachers, nurses and firefighters.

His preferred alternative is prison guards. Playing off public anger at a generous contract they won under former Gov. Gray Davis, Schwarzenegger radio ads released Tuesday cite the guards’ “37% pay hike” as evidence of “big government unions” wasting taxpayer money. On the same theme, a Schwarzenegger television ad opens with a 2002 headline on the “prison guards’ ” raise.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the guards union, has been a top sponsor of labor’s campaign against Schwarzenegger, but has kept a lower public profile than unions for teachers, nurses and firefighters.

A television ad against Proposition 76, Schwarzenegger’s plan to cap state spending, features prison-guard lobbyist Craig Brown, but identifies him as “California Finance Director, 1996 to 1998.” A union strategist said his former job title was more germane to the ad.

The broader anti-Schwarzenegger spot that unions started airing Thursday was produced by guard-union political consultants Ray McNally and Richard Temple, but shows a firefighter, police officer, teacher and nurse each denouncing the governor in rat-a-tat succession.

The spot opens with Schwarzenegger speaking on Leno’s show in August 2003. “I do not have to bow to any special interests,” Schwarzenegger says in the ad. “I have plenty of money. No one can pay me off. Trust me.” A firefighter interjects: “But now he’s taking millions from developers and big business.” “And pushing their agenda with his special election,” adds a police officer in front of a squad car.

In the days since unions started airing the ad, they have also kept running spots against three of his ballot measures: Propositions 74, 75 and 76.

Don Sipple, Schwarzenegger’s media strategist, said unions’ resumption of direct attacks on the governor could undermine their battle against his election agenda.

“I think the vitriolic effort to go after the governor hurts their credibility generally on everything else they’re saying,” Sipple said.

Union strategist Gale Kaufman described the new ad as part of labor’s effort to publicize what she called Schwarzenegger’s “lack of leadership.”

“He called the special election; this is all about him, and they think somehow we shouldn’t be talking about him?” she said.

Given Schwarzenegger’s slide in popularity this year, his campaign has been judicious in its use of the governor.

Over the last week, it has been airing four 15-second television ads, but only one shows him. And the campaign for Proposition 77, the redistricting measure that is the centerpiece of his “political reform” ideas, says nothing about Schwarzenegger in its first TV ad, which began airing Monday.

San Jose State political science professor Larry N. Gerston said the public’s relatively low regard for Schwarzenegger offers his adversaries an opening they have every reason to seize. “If you don’t like him,” Gerston said, “why would you vote for any of his propositions?”

Overall, he described the election as “a huge chess game.”