1115.org

Last month as I took a look at the the race for Governor in California, I wrote:

Believe me, back in 2003 I’d have promised to donate to, work for, and vote for anyone running against Schwarzenegger. If Angelides can’t run a better campaign than this, he doesn’t deserve my vote, and unless something drastic happens, he won’t get it.

Since then, I’ve made it a point to follow the dynamics of the campaign in the hope that Angelides would give me a reason to reconsider. A unified message, stark reminders of the misguided and wasteful special election of 2005, effective advertising and communications that played to California’s Democratic majority, anything at all that indicated Angelides was acting like someone who wanted, and more importantly was deserving of, the job of running the nation’s richest and most populous state.

Quite simply, he’s done nothing of the kind. His first major TV ad buy was in support of this:

This little “meet Phil” piece may as well be a black screen with generic white type reading “typical bland bio ad” for all it was worth. It certainly would have freed up some money to run it more often. The ad is so inept that Angelides even manages to damn himself with faint praise by using this line written about him in the Sacramento Bee:

“…the most effective and dynamic state treasurer in a generation…”

I’ll bet he was also the biggest hunk in the A/V club too. Bad ads can be chalked up to inept advisors, but even giving Angelides the benefit of the doubt there, he still blew his biggest opportunity to turn the race around when he was granted an hour of quality time at the San Francisco Chronicle:

Democrat Phil Angelides blamed his struggling campaign for governor on a “record amount of negative ads” put out by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in an interview Monday with The Chronicle editorial board.

Negative ads. I wonder if he means the kind that he ran against his primary opponent Steve Westly which precipitated one of the ugliest ad wars in recent memory, all but handing another term to Schwarzenegger. But Angelides whining wasn’t his only misstep at the Chronicle editorial board:

Angelides said he would pay for these programs with $1.5 billion in “efficiencies” in state government and cuts in low-priority spending — both items that he could not give many specifically details.

In a pathetic irony, this is exactly what Schwarzenegger was saying as he ran in the 2003 recall election. We slammed him for it then, and fair is fair. Angelides is the state’s treasurer, he knows better than anyone that “efficiencies” and streamlining never add up to the kind of money that it takes to get anything done. That’s not to say that government can’t tighten its belt from time to time, but not only isn’t it a panacea, Angelides makes himself look foolish by bringing up the subject and then not fleshing it out in what was probably a make or break setting. He didn’t, and The Chronicle ended up endorsing Schwarzenegger, an act I’m sure no one on the editorial board thought they’d be doing just a few months ago.

I take no pleasure in my decision to waive my right to vote against Schwarzenegger. As I’ve said before, he’s literally half of the the reason Jason and I started 1115 back in 2003, and since the absurd recall election that year, I have looked forward to few things as much as the opportunity to turn the scumbag out of office and send him back to making awful movies. If this was a parliamentary vote, I’d choose “no confidence” in a heartbeat and be quite happy. Unfortunately in this case, I don’t have that luxury.

One luxury I do have is granted me by Angelides’ double-digit poll deficit. This would be a hard choice had the race been closer, if the vote was really black and white. But it isn’t close, and it is the perfect time to send as big a message to Angelides and the California Democrats as I can manage. This race was lost during the primary where polls showed Westly with the ability to handily beat the incumbent, and no such likelihood for Angelides. If the Democrats can’t avoid such nasty public infighting, they will continue putting up wounded candidates who will go on to defeat every time. Were I to vote for Angelides, I would be supporting a candidate and a state party who have done nothing to earn my support and many things to squander it. And I’m certainly not alone.