7 Jun 2006 - San Francisco Chronicle
Ebullient Angelides looks ahead
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Carla Marinucci and John Wildermuth, Chronicle Political Writers
(06-07) 01:23 PDT SACRAMENTO - In Los Angeles, Steve Westly's campaign folded up the chairs and headed for bed at midnight, but in Sacramento, the party for Phil Angelides had just begun.
The clouds of blue, white and gold balloons descended on the Democrats, yelling "Go, Phil, go,'' ready to march behind the man they were convinced is the candidate to defeat Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the November general election.
Angelides, 52, the twice-elected state treasurer, battled in a brutal primary marked by tough television ads and a tougher-than-expected opponent in Westly, the state controller.
Angelides, gratified by an effort that at 1 a.m. Wednesday had pushed him to a lead of 4 percentage points with two-thirds of the primary ballots counted, gathered supporters in the ballroom of the Grand Sheraton Hotel for a final cheering session.
With hundreds of excited supporters chanting his name, he declared victory.
"We've been down, we've been up and more than once we've been counted out. And we've won this fight because we've stood for something greater -- a California that gives its people more chances, not fewer ... a California that is still the frontier of the American dream."
"That's why I'm standing here before you as the nominee for governor," he said.
Angelides thanked California Democratic voters saying "you've given me the chance to fight for you ... and I will not let you down.
"We're going to win this November," he said. "And then we're going to go on to build a better, stronger, fairer, California."
Angelides thanked Westly, 49, a former eBay executive and controller since 2002, for the challenge of the campaign, saying he "cares very deeply about this state." Angelides said he looked forward to "working together on the road to victory to take back this great state."
Angelides immediately signaled he would take on Schwarzenegger on key issues, saying he would work to "open the door to college wider" and bring health care to all California families.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a co-chair of the Angelides campaign, said "the voters of this great golden state have spoken loud and clear ... and they've said that California is ready for a governor who's going to unite us ... to make the Democratic state democratic again."
The tale of the win was in the map of California posted on the Secretary of State's election returns Web site: the green counties, which represented Angelides' wins, were the largest Democratic counties along the coast including San Francisco, Alameda and Los Angeles. Westly, who campaigned as a public official who could build bipartisan coalitions, won counties in the Central Valley and areas that tend to vote Republican.
It was the scenario that Angelides, the former Democratic Party chairman, had predicted: strong grassroots and labor support for a candidate who said he spoke for "true Democratic values."
And just as he had surprised media and pundits by coming back from a 13-percentage point deficit just weeks ago, Angelides again surprised on an election night that was thought to be too close to call, when he jumped out to a lead with the first votes counted and maintained it throughout the night.
Still, the Angelides campaign in the final days had reason to be nervous. Westly had spent $42 million on his campaign, much of it from his own pocket, and had battered Angelides in campaign ads alleging the former developer he was responsible for major pollution violations at Lake Tahoe.
But some Democratic heavyweights, notably U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, rallied to Angelides defense and may have save his campaign with die-hard Democratic voters. But another who saved the treasurer's bid for governor was Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, whose family kicked in an astounding $10 million for an independent expenditure advertising campaign that helped Angelides keep his message on the air and match Westly.
As Angelides roamed up and down the state on his last campaign swing, the close of almost a year of work to get the party nomination, he appeared upbeat and confident.
Sam Rodriguez, political director of the California Democratic Party, said two things worked in Angelides' favor: the low voter turnout and the ground game. Although Westly had claimed to be the high-tech candidate, it was Angelides' team that used a cutting edge, web-based voter identification program called "Viva Democracy."
"We micro-targeted and identified our supporters with the latest technology," said Rodriquez of the program that allowed volunteers to sign onto the Internet, log in and specifically choose the kind of supporters and party members they wanted to reach -- by sex, age, and even language. The technique worked especially well in heavily Democratic areas like San Francisco and Alameda, where volunteers made the calls from their own homes, and on their own cell phones rather than in sterile phone bank headquarters.
The high tech effort was enormously effective, he said, but so was the candidate: in the end, "people know Phil and trust Phil."
Political consultant Katie Merrill was beaming from ear to ear as she watched Angelides in the moments after his speech just after midnight. "I feel great," she said. "It's a great day for Democrats, and it's going to be a great campaign."