It’s a Good Time for Angelides to Tune His Pitch

Summers are dangerous for candidates who run against sitting governors. This summer is particularly dangerous for Democratic Treasurer Phil Angelides.

Typically, the challenger has just emerged from a bruising primary, is all beat up and broke. The incumbent strikes with an arsenal of negative TV ads -- roughly $12 million worth in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s case -- plus the usual cache of gubernatorial weapons: bill-signing photo ops, grants of public money, patronage appointments, the ability to feign action.

Republican Evelle Younger in 1978, Democrat Kathleen Brown in 1994 and Republican Bill Simon in 2002 are examples of challengers who stumbled during the summer and never gained traction in the fall.

“Simon was ahead of Gray Davis by 10 points after the primary, but our lead turned into a 10-point deficit by the end of summer,” recalls Simon strategist Sal Russo. “Conventional wisdom was that Davis was going to win. Business flocked to Davis.

“Angelides has that same problem. The body politic has decided that Schwarzenegger’s going to win.”

That, indeed, is the conventional wisdom. But it’s not a universal feeling. And few are willing to predict it publicly.

Voters aren’t paying much attention now, politicos point out. They’re vacationing.

But political donors are watching -- and reading polls. Schwarzenegger’s summer goal is to portray Angelides as a distant longshot.

“Fundamentally, contributors are bettors, and they like to pick winners,” notes Democratic consultant Darry Sragow, who’s not involved in the race.

Sragow believes Angelides “is in serious danger of getting marginalized fairly quickly.”

“Arnold has a lot of money. He’s in an office with a lot of power. He has been moving toward the middle and neutralizing Phil. He has been reaching out to Latinos.”

Angelides’ strategists dismiss much of that, while declining to be quoted by name.

There’s no denying that the governor’s popularity is on the rise and that he held a seven-point lead over Angelides in a recent San Jose State poll. Schwarzenegger has benefited from a style change, windfall-tax receipts and a Democratic Legislature willing to deal with him.

But Angelides’ advisors believe that the governor is plenty vulnerable -- “he’s not the guy voters thought they elected” -- and are confident the challenger can raise enough money to convey his message on TV.

The bigger problem for Angelides is: What exactly is his message? And how is he defined in the voters’ eyes?

Angelides’ aides concede that he has been defined pretty much as Schwarzenegger and primary election opponent Steve Westly have depicted him: as a tax hiker. Angelides insists that he’d raise taxes by a mere $5 billion -- not the distorted $10 billion claimed by Schwarzenegger and Westly -- and only by closing corporate loopholes and tapping the rich. But that apparently hasn’t sunk through to voters.

Worse, Angelides hasn’t made clear what exactly he’d raise the taxes for, other than for budget-balancing, “fully funding schools” (which Schwarzenegger just did) and, only Tuesday, hiring more law enforcement officers, especially to supervise released sex offenders.

Most important, he hasn’t painted a bold picture of where he’d lead his native state. What vision does he have of California 20 years down the road? He does seem to have big ideas, but they haven’t been shared with voters.

But, to be fair, Schwarzenegger’s etchings of what his second term would look like are even fuzzier. He wants to “go forward,” the incumbent says. But to where? To do what? Apparently not to “blow up the boxes,” as he once promised.

And which Schwarzenegger would we get: the celebrity non-politician, the blustering bully or the positive bipartisan?

Angelides, one advisor says, “is going to have to take some risks and set up a choice that matters to people. If we run an overly cautious campaign, shame on us....

“If this is a debate in the weeds about budget numbers and who gets taxed, in all likelihood the incumbent wins. If it’s something bigger about what California is about, we’ve got a good shot. This has got to be about forcing Californians to decide what they want in this state.”

Other Democratic consultants, outside the campaign, fault Angelides for being too reactive and not proactive. They cite his endorsement Monday of Proposition 83 -- Jessica’s Law, to get tougher with sex offenders -- which Schwarzenegger strongly supports. Angelides should have endorsed it months ago, they say, before the governor made it a campaign issue.

But Angelides does possess one valuable asset that Schwarzenegger doesn’t: consistency. He has been pounding on the same themes for years: Don’t pay daily bills with borrowed money, even if it means raising taxes. Only borrow for public works to invest in the future.

Another asset is guts: He never has been shy about standing up to a governor, whether it was Davis or Schwarzenegger.

Angelides needs to get this stuff across to voters. That’s why his latest attempt to define himself, which is about to start with a big TV ad buy, is so crucial. “We have to tell voters who Phil is,” says an advisor.

“They want to know whether he’s a viable alternative to Arnold.”

There’s no time like summer to start making that sell -- before Schwarzenegger can peddle his own portrait of the challenger.

Reach the columnist at george.skelton@latimes.com