Primary Fight May Be Bitter

With big-name Democrats passing up the chance to make a run at ousting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the party’s June primary is taking shape as a race between two virtual unknowns who appear headed toward a harsh campaign that some party leaders fear could benefit the Republican incumbent.

“The Democrats can’t afford a bitter and nasty campaign,” said state party Chairman Art Torres. “The voters will be turned off by that.”

Both Democrats -- state Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly -- hold obscure jobs that draw scant public attention. That void offers opportunity to both, but is fraught with danger too. When Californians start to tune in to their campaign for the nomination, each will be striving to introduce himself before the other defines him as unfit to lead the state. Foreshadowing a spiteful race ahead, both have launched efforts to undercut the other’s credibility.

The opening of what looks, for now, to be a two-man Democratic contest comes as Schwarzenegger prepares to unveil a 2006 agenda in January that will serve as a roadmap to his reelection campaign. Wounded by voters’ rejection last month of his ballot measures, the Republican incumbent will propose billions of dollars in public construction projects with potential appeal beyond his conservative base.

Low poll ratings notwithstanding, the governor still holds key advantages over both Democrats: the vast powers of incumbency, a bold personality and a name well known to voters.

At first glance, the similarities between Angelides and Westly are striking: both are white men who became rich in private business and toiled for years in the trenches of party politics before winning election to statewide finance jobs.

For the most part, Angelides and Westly have taken similar stands on high-profile issues. Both favor abortion rights, gun control and gay marriage. Both have been forceful advocates of environmental protection. Both have championed organized labor.

Both are also strangers to most Californians: a Times Poll in October found 70% of likely voters knew too little about Angelides to have a good or bad impression of him, and 83% drew a blank on Westly.

The biggest policy issue on which they differ has been taxes.

Westly has resisted most calls for higher taxes, although he supports a June ballot measure to raise income taxes on the wealthy to fund universal preschool. He casts himself as the moderate in the race.

Angelides has appealed to the party’s liberal base, in part by becoming one of the capital’s most outspoken Democrats in favor of higher taxes to relieve the state’s chronic budget crunch without shortchanging schools, healthcare and other needs.

Privately, some top Democrats have groused about the caliber of the party’s contenders to take on Schwarzenegger, questioning whether either Westly or Angelides has the stature to withstand side-by-side comparisons with a Hollywood icon.

The state’s most popular Democrat, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has declined to reprise her 1990 run for governor, but will seek another Senate term instead. Also staying out are actors Rob Reiner and Warren Beatty, two of Schwarzenegger’s best-known critics, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

With the field apparently narrowed to Westly and Angelides, many Democrats now fear a messy primary that risks damaging whoever emerges as the party’s nominee.

Yet signs point in that direction. Westly has reunited much of the core team that ran several brutal attack campaigns for former Gov. Gray Davis. Among them are senior strategist Garry South and TV ad makers David Doak and Tom O’Donnell. They have left little doubt that they plan to revive assaults used by previous Angelides rivals on the treasurer’s record as a Sacramento developer.

“You’d have to be pretty foolish to think that won’t be fully explored during the campaign,” South said.

As for Angelides, he gained a reputation for slash-and-burn tactics with his 1994 television ads against rival treasurer candidate David A. Roberti, a former state Senate leader. In one spot, he attacked Roberti’s opposition to abortion by highlighting the fatal shooting of a doctor at a Florida abortion clinic.

“When you get to the point of saying someone’s in league with murderers, or terrorists, I think that goes over the line,” said Roberti, the star guest at a Westly fundraising reception this month at the California Club in Los Angeles.

Angelides, 52, a former state Democratic Party chairman and prolific fundraiser, defeated Roberti in the 1994 primary, but lost the general election to Matt Fong. Angelides made another attempt at the treasurer’s race in 1998, and that time he won. Four years later, he sailed easily to reelection.

Westly, 49, has served on the Democratic National Committee for more than two decades. He ran against former Gov. Jerry Brown for state party chairman in 1989, but lost. In 2002, he won the controller’s job in a razor-thin victory over Republican Tom McClintock.

A former business teacher at Stanford University, Westly built a fortune as an early executive at EBay Inc., the Internet auction company. He reported more than $225 million in adjusted gross income on his tax returns over the last decade.

Angelides, also a multimillionaire, has not met Westly’s demand to release his tax returns, but is widely thought to have far less at his disposal for the campaign. So far, Westly has put $15 million of his own money into the governor’s race, more than four times what Angelides has spent on all of his campaigns combined.

To distinguish himself from his rival, Westly has painted himself as a Sacramento outsider who applies Silicon Valley innovation to state government. South, his chief strategist, described Angelides as “part of the Sacramento power structure for his entire adult life.” Westly also argues that he would carry more appeal with swing voters in the general election match with Schwarzenegger.

For his part, Angelides has appealed to liberals by stressing his aggressive opposition to Schwarzenegger even when the governor’s popularity was strong. To cast doubt on Westly’s character and consistency, the Angelides camp has faulted him for joining Schwarzenegger’s campaign for fiscal measures on the March 2004 ballot, then taking a combative approach to the governor once his popularity dropped.

“Phil is a candidate of belief,” Angelides campaign manager Cathy Calfo said. “He’s not out there sort of sizing up the political landscape.”

Still, apart from the flip-flop charge, Westly’s willingness to work with Schwarzenegger could appeal to voters eager to see state leaders drop their partisan rancor and work together on problems facing California, among them traffic, smog, illegal immigration and substandard schools.

“The fact that Westly has worked with Schwarzenegger in the past is one of his best selling points in a general election,” said Republican consultant Dan Schnur. “But it probably kills him in a primary.”

Day by day, the clash of the two Democrats is creating openings for potential Schwarzenegger attacks on whoever prevails.

“It’s a hard-core liberal versus a weathervane,” said Schwarzenegger communications director Rob Stutzman.

Up to now, the campaign has mainly been a hunt for money to pay for television advertising in the spring. As of Sept. 30, Angelides had $15.2 million in the bank, and Westly, $13.3 million.

Beyond the money contest, Angelides and Westly have also been dashing around the state trying to line up key supporters. In that contest, Angelides has taken a wide lead, collecting hundreds of endorsements. Among his most prominent backers are a Bay-area trio -- Feinstein, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- that his advisors hope will appeal especially to women, who cast the majority of the votes in the party’s primaries, and Democrats in party strongholds around San Francisco.

With ethnic politics an important aspect of any Democratic primary, Angelides has also cornered such key African American supporters as basketball star Magic Johnson and Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa, the top Latino politician in Southern California, has not taken sides.

Westly, who has scored dozens of endorsements from less well-known supporters, has used his rival’s advantage in that area to bolster his case that Angelides is a Sacramento insider.

In January, both candidates plan to devote much of their time to seeking out labor unions for support. There, too, Angelides has built an early lead, rallying the California Federation of Teachers and more than two dozen other unions and locals behind his campaign. Still up for grabs, though, are the California Teachers Assn. and the other major unions that have proved potent antagonists of Schwarzenegger: those representing firefighters and nurses.

Whoever wins, Schwarzenegger’s team has welcomed the prospect of a challenger who lacks the dominant personality of the governor.

“People want to feel a connection,” Stutzman said. “They want to have confidence in a person, and they want to feel that someone is a leader and up to the job, and that’s a contrast that is a big advantage for the governor.”

Whereas Schwarzenegger fits the mold of California’s more colorful recent governors (Jerry Brown and Ronald Reagan), Westly and Angelides share the more bland workaday style of the others (Gray Davis, Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian), said USC senior scholar Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, an expert on California politics. “It’s not always the charisma and personality that counts,” she said.

Some Democrats already see the fall contest, in part, as a choice between Schwarzenegger’s showmanship and his challenger’s professionalism.

“People are tired of novelty,” said Torres, the state party chairman. “They want someone to do the work.”