Captive Audience Uncaptivated in Democrats’ Race for Governor

One look around a state Democratic convention hall Saturday provided proof that recent polls have been on target: Roughly half the likely voters still haven’t decided which candidate to support in the party’s gubernatorial primary.

It wasn’t exactly morgue-like when the two contenders spoke to the nearly 2000 delegates. But aside from the paid staffers and volunteer recruits who were whooping it up on cue, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm from the party activists, who seemed glued to their seats – certainly not like they’d normally exhibit for a popular, charismatic candidate.

State Treasurer Phil Angelides later did win an overwhelming formal party endorsement, capturing 67% of the delegates’ votes to Controller Steve Westly’s mere 28%.

This was the best news Angelides had received since his struggling campaign began. Indeed, it’s practically the only good news except for developer-pal Angelo Tsakopoulos’ recent decision to pump $5 million into an “independent” TV ad buy promoting Angelides. That was to partially counter Westly’s infusion of $22.5 million in personal cash into his front-running race.

The endorsement should halt Angelides’ slide by allowing him to claim the mantle of true-blue Democrat and benefit from party mail promotions.

But these delegates are liberal ideologues who agree with Angelides’ long, outspoken opposition to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s policies and the treasurer’s demand that corporations and the rich “pay their fair share” to balance the books, improve schools and “invest in the future.” Even so, the Angelides delegates I spoke with were tepid supporters, disappointed with his soft campaign and fearing he couldn’t beat Schwarzenegger in November.

Democratic voters as a whole lean more toward the center and favor Westly by 33% to 20%, according to a Times poll published Saturday.

The most telling poll number in that matchup, however, was the 47% undecided or wanting to vote for another candidate. Moreover, the “decided” weren’t all that decided; 53% said they “might end up voting for somebody else.” This is an unusual amount of indecision and ambivalence for this close to an election – six weeks when the poll was taken.

By comparison, during the last contested Democratic gubernatorial primary, in 1998, only 13% of likely voters were undecided in early April. (That’s an apples and oranges example, however, because in 1998 three Democrats and one Republican were tossed into one open primary, so there were more choices.) But in 1994, during a regular Democratic primary with three candidates, there were only 28% undecided in late March. The last two-candidate Democratic primary was in 1990 and in early May there were 39% undecided – still much less than the current half.

Clearly, neither Angelides nor Westly is getting through to most voters. And Westly may be leading merely because he has been able to afford – and has produced better – TV ads.

There probably are a couple of noncandidate reasons, however, for the voters’ inattention.

Although Schwarzenegger severely wounded himself by calling a wasteful special election last year, it did benefit him in one small way: He inflicted “voter fatigue” that, no doubt, is causing many people to wish state elections would just go away for a while.

And Schwarzenegger, whether popular or despised, still is a celebrity governor who attracts attention. In political parlance, he “sucks the oxygen” out of political debate and news coverage.

That said, the current candidates aren’t exactly magnets for attention.

“These are two uninteresting people saying uninteresting things,” one Democratic consultant told me before the candidates’ convention speeches. He isn’t working for either one and didn’t want to be identified because someday he might be.

The relatively placid mood in the convention hall seemed to reflect the mainstream Democratic electorate. Delegates cheered denunciations of President Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger, but didn’t jump up and down for either of their potential gubernatorial nominees.

Westly gave a formula speech, briefly touching most of the bases, with one notable exception. In this den of “soak the rich” advocates, the candidate didn’t mention a core plank of his campaign: that taxes should be raised only as a last resort.

That probably would have generated loud boos – and boosted his stock among moderate Democrats on election day.

Westly’s main message at the convention was that Angelides shouldn’t pick on him with negative ads. “I want to focus on beating Arnold, not beating up each other,” he told delegates.

Angelides spoke with more fire.

“This is about winning a victory for Democratic values that will ripple across the nation,” he declared. “We don’t serve those values by turning ourselves into Arnold-lite.”

Without mentioning Westly by name, Angelides reminded the party activists that his opponent campaigned with Schwarzenegger for a $15-billion budget-balancing bond two years ago. (Westly pointed out that most Democratic leaders also supported that bond.)

“There are some in our party who tried to accommodate Arnold Schwarzenegger, to bow down to his early burst of popularity,” Angelides shouted.

“I stood up to this governor from Day One when no one else would. I’ve even been called the anti-Arnold. If you have any doubt, just look at this body. All-natural. God-given. The way it was intended to be.”

Passion. Self-deprecation. Package it with some vision and stick it in a TV ad. Angelides badly needs an attention-grabber.

Westly needs to not shy away from his anti-tax position.

Help the voters decide.