Angelides Inspires Growing Concern

With just over six weeks left in the race for governor, the troubles facing Democrat Phil Angelides have intensified, and his political allies are expressing rising concern over his campaign’s failure to gain momentum.

Hindering his drive to oust Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are Angelides’ slow pace in raising money, his tepid support from organized labor and his difficulty defining himself clearly for voters, Democratic strategists say.

Missteps have also hobbled Angelides. Some black members of the clergy say the state treasurer has made only lackluster efforts to appeal to African Americans, his party’s most loyal constituency. And his campaign manager’s admission this month that two Angelides aides bungled the release of audio recordings of private Schwarzenegger conversations has stirred grumbling among Democratic leaders about his staff’s competence.

Aggravating all that are what even critics of Schwarzenegger say are the discipline and efficiency of the Republican governor’s reelection machine.

So with Schwarzenegger holding a wide lead barely two weeks before voting by mail starts, one question on the minds of many Angelides supporters is whether there is enough time to right his campaign. Another is whether his trouble sparking voter enthusiasm risks harming other Democrats on the Nov. 7 ballot or sinking propositions that the party supports.

Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who is not working on the campaign, said Angelides had fallen into a perilous cycle, in which low poll ratings deter donors, making it harder to afford the TV ads needed to drive a recovery. To escape the rut is “not impossible, but it’s certainly a hard thing to do, given the time that’s left in the race,” he said.

Angelides has overcome long odds before. In the spring Democratic primary, he was trailing rival Steve Westly by 13 points in a Times Poll just six weeks before he defeated the state controller. But Westly was largely unknown and, thus, much easier to knock out than a governor long familiar to Californians.

“Would he prefer to be ahead? Yes, that would be nifty,” said Gale Kaufman, a campaign consultant who works closely with unions that back Angelides. “Does it mean he’s out of the race? No, not at all.”

But money is a major problem. Angelides has raised about $14.4 million this year, compared with the governor’s $27.6 million. In the first 20 days of September, Angelides gathered slightly over $1 million, while Schwarzenegger collected $2.6 million.

“It is not a pretty picture when it comes to fundraising, when you don’t have an incumbent governor,” state Democratic Chairman Art Torres said.

Given the state’s caps on donations to candidates, a prime source of hope for Angelides is independent spending on his campaign by supporters. Sacramento real estate tycoon Angelo Tsakopoulos, who with his family spent more than $8 million on TV ads for Angelides in the primary, could try to ride to the rescue again.

But since the June primary, neither Tsakopoulos nor organized labor, another longtime source of big money for Angelides, has invested heavily in his push to unseat Schwarzenegger.

Last year, unions spent nearly $100 million to defeat Schwarzenegger’s ballot measures in the November special election. But they have spent just $4 million on Angelides this year, and half of that was for the primary. In addition to qualms over whether Angelides can win, some unions face pressure now to steer money elsewhere, to propositions or to the national battle to win Democratic control of Congress.

“Resources are stretched very thin, let nobody kid you,” said Willie Pelote Sr., California political director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees., which supports Angelides.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., another union that supports Angelides, has reserved $5 million worth of TV ad time in October. But Ray McNally, a consultant to the union, said its leaders were still evaluating the gubernatorial contest before deciding what kind of ads to run and whether to spend millions more.

“There is a good chance that you could see some very serious independent expenditure campaigns -- when and if the race starts to tighten,” said McNally, a Republican who produced anti-Schwarzenegger ads for the union last year.

As for Schwarzenegger, who was spared the sort of primary that left Angelides bruised and nearly broke, he has already spent millions on ads that spotlight his challenger’s support for higher taxes.

“If Phil had his way, it could make it harder to own a home or even afford a car,” an announcer says in a Schwarzenegger spot that went on the air Friday.

Angelides, whose ads during the primary highlighted his vow to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, has only recently resumed substantial TV advertising, running a Democratic Party spot slamming Schwarzenegger for backing President Bush’s reelection in 2004.

“We made a very disciplined, realistic -- and I think ultimately it will prove very correct -- decision not to compete with them over the summer, because we didn’t have the money to do it,” said Angelides media strategist Bill Carrick.

In the end, “we’re not going to have dollar-for-dollar what they have, but we’ll be competitive,” said Carrick, who described the Bush ad as part of a push to maximize gains from a national voter climate that favors Democrats.

But some labor and Democratic strategists fault Angelides -- many privately and a few publicly -- for not running ads that flesh out his biography for voters who know little more about him than the caricatures in Schwarzenegger and Westly spots. They also say Angelides, who added tax cuts to his campaign agenda last month, fumbled the crucial issue of taxes.

Angelides “let himself be defined as a big tax-and-spend guy,” said political consultant John Hein, former government-relations director of the California Teachers Assn.

When tax questions came up in the candidate’s first mock debate last week with a Schwarzenegger stand-in, the topic tied Angelides in rhetorical knots, according to a person who attended.

More broadly, Angelides is still struggling to clarify his core message. In the primary, he cast himself as the lone Democrat who had the courage to stand up to Schwarzenegger budget cuts at the peak of the governor’s popularity. One of the few remnants of that theme is a banner he still displays at campaign stops: “Angelides: A Governor We Can Count On.”

Aides say his main message now is that Angelides fights for the middle class while Schwarzenegger protects special interests. But even many Democratic leaders still cannot explain what the message is. “Well, let’s see, I’m sure I could go to the Angelides website and pull that right up,” said San Diego County Democratic Chairman Jess Durfee.

Basic political work has also proved a challenge for Angelides, a former state Democratic chairman, particularly in his appeals to African Americans. By the time Schwarzenegger one-upped him last month by speaking at First African Methodist Episcopal Church, a must-stop for Democrats in South Los Angeles, Angelides had yet to make a courtesy call to its politically influential pastor, the Rev. John Hunter.

“It was certainly an oversight,” said Kerman Maddox, who handles political matters for the church.

The Rev. Frederick O. Murph, pastor of Brookins AME Church in South Los Angeles, said he was concerned that Angelides had failed so far to make any “big thrust, in terms of the African American vote.”

“I don’t think Phil Angelides has really directed enough energy in that area,” said Murph, who nonetheless described the treasurer as “a great guy” who would make a fine governor.

Angelides has won the support of just two African American ministers in California. Last week, he lost the support of a third, the Rev. J. Alfred Smith of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland.

Smith has added his name to a list of eight other black ministers supporting Schwarzenegger, who plans to visit an African American church and business fair on Sunday in Los Angeles.

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

dan.morain@latimes.com