Angelides Reassuring Rank and File

Beset by lackluster poll numbers and a sustained barrage of attack ads, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides tried Saturday to assuage angst among his party’s rank and file over his quest to unseat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Ignore all the doubters out there,” Angelides, the state treasurer, told a few hundred Democrats at a party meeting near San Francisco International Airport. Comparing himself to Depression-era boxing champ James “Cinderella Man” Braddock, Angelides said: “No matter how many punches they throw, I’m still standing.”

But with the Nov. 7 election three months away, some party loyalists are openly fretting about the state of his candidacy.

“I’m kind of concerned,” said Thomas Gangale, a Sonoma County Democrat who suggested that the Angelides campaign “probably doesn’t have the visibility yet that it ought to have.”

Others at the state party’s executive board meeting vented their frustration over Angelides’ brutal spring primary campaign waged against Steve Westly, the state controller. They said Westly’s attacks, even if matched by an equally harsh assault by Angelides, had undercut their party’s nominee in the opening stage of his battle to oust the Republican governor.

“There was a very nasty primary, and I lay that right at Steve Westly’s feet,” said Carol Robb, the San Bernardino County Democratic leader, adding: “I don’t think it’s anything that can’t be dealt with.”

Also irked by the intra-party spat was Yuba County Democratic Chairman Ed Fleming, who said Westly and Angelides had “really hurt each other.” He added: “We did a lot of stupid stuff in that campaign.”

Over the last several weeks, the state Republican Party has spent millions of dollars on television ads highlighting Westly’s accusations that Angelides would neglect the environment and overburden Californians with new taxes.

For all the hand-wringing, the Democratic meeting still offered Angelides a forum to stir enthusiasm among party workers who will stuff envelopes, phone voters and perform other campaign tasks.

Angelides told the crowd he would stand up for middle-class families and young people, while Schwarzenegger would defend “the oil companies, the HMOs, the pharmaceutical companies, the tobacco companies.”

“You’ve probably seen those ads -- me doing the moonwalk, going backward,” he said, referring to Republican TV spots that show Angelides walking backward to suggest that he would undo Schwarzenegger’s efforts.

“When they say I’m going to take California backward, do they mean I’m going to take us back to a time when we had the best schools in this nation?” Angelides asked the cheering crowd.

Angelides did not mention his plan to increase income taxes on individuals who make more than $250,000 a year and corporations, but said it was wrong to “lavish more on those who have the most.” He also vowed to combat global warming more aggressively than Schwarzenegger has.

In response to Angelides’ speech, Katie Levinson, communications director of the Schwarzenegger campaign, said: “It should come as no surprise that a flailing campaign, whose chief message is raising hard-working Californians’ taxes by $10 billion, who is losing support among Democratic supporters in the state, should resort to charges that are neither based in fact or reality.”

In the weeks ahead, a key challenge for Angelides is to consolidate stronger support among Democratic voters. A Field Poll last month found just 63% of likely Democratic voters favor Angelides, well short of the support he would need from his own party to defeat the governor. Overall, the survey found that likely voters favor Schwarzenegger, 45% to 37%.

In recent days, Angelides has tried to sharpen his central message on Schwarzenegger: The governor lacks core values and flip-flops for political gain. At the party gathering, many Democrats echoed that attack.

Christina R. Billeci, a Marysville city councilwoman, said Schwarzenegger had switched positions on school spending, healthcare and the environment, but “people have short memories.”

Westly, who left the party meeting just as Angelides arrived, expressed no regret for his attacks during the primary campaign, but said he strongly supported his onetime rival.

He said people had recently asked him, “Steve, did Mr. Schwarzenegger ask if he could use your name in those TV ads of his?”

“And I’ve said, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” Westly said. “But I’m not angry. Heck, we may use some pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger in our ads without asking him.”