Jabs Heat Up as Races Wind Down

By Robert Salladay and Seema Mehta

June 4, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

SAN JOSE — Frantic for even the smallest margin of victory in the Democratic primary for governor, Steve Westly and Phil Angelides crossed the state Saturday sniping at each other and searching for a convincing message to turn uncommitted voters their way.

As if to shore up their own credentials, each took aim at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the man they hope to battle after Tuesday’s primary.

At a meeting with environmentalists near the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, Westly criticized the governor’s environmental policies with a slightly exaggerated jab at the half-dozen gas-guzzling cars he owns.

“We are leading the world in the wrong standards,” the state controller said. “No wonder; we have a governor with nine Hummers. It’s time for a change.”

Westly also unleashed the final mailer of his campaign, questioning Angelides’ ethics for receiving $9 million in independent donations from his longtime friend Angelo Tsakopoulos, a developer.

“Do we really want one multimillionaire developer to have so much influence over a governor?” the Westly mailer asks.

For his part, Angelides on Saturday railed against the “Bush-Schwarzenegger” agenda, attempting to present himself as the one true Democrat in the race and link his potential opponent to the unpopular president.

“I care about a different future than the one George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger see for this nation,” he said.

The state treasurer criticized Westly for a torrent of negative ads, including the Tsakopoulos mail piece.

“Steve Westly unfortunately has stopped trying to tell people why he ought to be governor,” Angelides said. “If he wants to keep running a negative campaign, that is his choice. But it’s not going to win the hearts and minds of California voters.”

He called Westly’s ads “completely misleading.... Voters will sift through the distortion and get to the truth.”

Tuesday’s Democratic primary is expected to be one of the closest in years, made even more unpredictable by recent polls that show about one in four likely Democratic voters remain undecided.

With such uncertainty, the election could be complicated even further by Alameda County, the most strongly Democratic of the state’s large counties and the home of nearly 6% of California’s Democrats. The Bay Area county will hand-sort its ballots -- mostly with optical scanners -- because it could not get more advanced electronic voting machines ready in time. The process may postpone the election results until Wednesday or later.

Both candidates spent Saturday at multiple events throughout the state, most of them stacked with their own supporters.

Angelides, a longtime Democratic Party activist, started the day with a rally of several dozen supporters at La Golondrina restaurant on Olvera Street in Los Angeles, a favorite spot for politicians.

Angelides then stopped at a place where he was sure to be greeted warmly: a Greek cultural and food festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in San Jose. He spoke to a crowd of several hundred people waiting to see a dance troupe, pasted an Angelides bumper sticker on a baby’s shirt and shook hands with elderly ladies peeling cucumbers and tomatoes behind a food booth.

“I am going to win. This Greek is going to win,” Angelides told one couple in the middle of the festival. He spoke of the Greek love for democracy and repeated a quote purportedly from Winston Churchill: “We know Greeks don’t fight like heroes; heroes fight like Greeks.”

Later, at a union hall in San Jose where supporters were making calls on behalf of him and other Democratic candidates, he joked with union workers that he put his daughters in his TV commercials “because they are better looking than me. They are more articulate than me. We want to win.”

“I know what Democratic voters are going to see is one candidate who will stand up for working people and the most vulnerable in our society,” Angelides said. “I am the one Democrat in this race that people can count on to do that.”

Westly’s day began at a beach cleanup in Huntington Beach. Afterward, he traveled to the San Pedro gathering, then met with Asian voters in the San Gabriel Valley, and conferred with black clergy and played host at a town hall meeting at Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

Speaking to reporters in Huntington Beach, Westly defended the latest mailer attacking Angelides, saying voters need to know who is bankrolling his opponent.

He noted that Sacramento developer Tsakopoulos has an ongoing business relationship with Angelides and has made the “largest political contribution in U.S. history” to elect one politician. The contributions, independent of the Angelides campaign, are not covered by state donation limits.

“People have a right to know what their relationship is,” Westly said. “Mr. Angelides will say these things are long in the past. In fact, they are still working on projects today.”

Westly is ending his campaign by trying to paint Angelides as a polluter, despite his endorsements from the Sierra Club, the California League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.

Westly continues to run a TV ad that suggests Angelides illegally dumped waste into Lake Tahoe. In fact, Angelides owned a share of a single vacation condominium where the dumping occurred and had nothing to do with it.

Wearing blue latex gloves and carrying large trash bags, Westly and his barefoot wife, Anita Yu, spent Saturday morning combing through sand at Huntington City Beach, picking up cigarette butts, bits of plastic and other litter. Surrounded by supporters and reporters, he stopped and talked to random sunbathers.

“Remember to vote on Tuesday,” he told them. “We’ll leave your beach a little cleaner.”

At his last event of the day -- the Los Angeles town hall -- Westly found himself confronted by Lenor De Cruz, a 59-year-old teacher from Victorville who stood to tell him that she still had not made up her mind between him and Angelides.

“How are you different?” she asked.

Westly used the moment to renew his criticism of Angelides’ record as a real estate developer.

“I like trees standing up,” he said. “Other people like them lying down.”