Monthly Archives: February 2006

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Phil Angelides Candidate Profile

( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Angelides with CTA

Treasurer Phil Angelides accepts the endorsement of the California Teachers Association.


So, who is Phil Angelides, you might ask?  Well, the immediate answer is the current Treasurer of California with a long history in the California Democratic Party.  However, more than the biographic details of his upbringing in Sacramento or his development of a “sustainable community”, what really tells the recent, and relevant story of Phil Angelides is his fight against Arnold Schwarzenegger:

For more than 30 years, Phil Angelides has stood up for the principles of responsibility, fairness and opportunity.  Over the past two years, Phil has grown increasingly concerned about the direction California is heading under Governor Schwarzenegger’s leadership.  Schwarzenegger’s proposals to cut education and health care for families have threatened California’s quality of life, compelling Phil to stand up to lead the opposition to Schwarzenegger.  Now, Phil Angelides is running for governor to take back this great state, put it to work for working Californians and build a better future for our children.Phil Angelides.com

Check the flip…

Angelides has fought Shwarzenegger consistently, and from the beginning.  And for that, the Democratic Party establishment has lined up to support him:

[California Professional Firefighters President Lou] Paulson told Angelides that the firefighters, a nemesis of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, would back him for governor. Angelides said he was so thrilled — “honored beyond belief” — that he had goose bumps. “I’d love to be able to announce this publicly with you,” he said. “Can we do something tomorrow morning?” He grinned and thanked Paulson. “Bye-bye, buddy.”
***
Just more than four months before the Democratic primary for governor, Angelides has commandeered the party establishment. He has lined up support from more than three dozen unions, 200-plus elected officials and hundreds of other party insiders. In most years, that would seal his victory. (Contra Costa County Times 2/5/06

Phil Angelides must now be considered the “insider’s” candidate for the Democratic nomination.  He has too much support.  However, Angelides is no typical insider; he is quite the firecracker.  I like to compare him to Howard Dean minus “The Scream.”  Like Dean, he is a fighter.  Like Dean, he is attempting to line up improbable endorsements.  Dean had Al Gore and the SEIU; Angelides has the Senators, the CTA, and now the CPF.  He is a formidable candidate, especially for the Democratic nomination. 

However, he can be brash.  It’s why Carole Migden is strongly supporting Westly (even giving up her chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee).  She believes that Westly is the stronger of the candidate.  It’s hard to argue that Westly isn’t more to the center of Angelides.  But, like most primaries, Angelides has an edge in the primary even if Westly might be more closely centered with the California electorate.  Angelides is running to the left, which would certainly help his cause during the primary.
So, Angelides is trying to make his nomination inevitable.  Certainly a good strategy.  It worked for John Kerry in the presidential primary, and it might work here.  However, it is a gamble: (Note that the author of this Capitol Weekly article is working for Steve Westly)

But the dirty little secret is, there is nothing in Angelides’ electoral career that should lead anyone to believe he is an 800-pound gorilla, politically speaking–or that he is the best Democrat to run against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact, despite the perception that he’s been around forever, Angelides essentially still is a relatively untested candidate.

But when it comes to the issues, Angelides is a solid liberal.  As I discussed, he has the CTA endorsement, primarily because he has promised a big increase in education funding, restoring Prop 98 funding the Governator took away.  He would be a visionary leader, somewhat in the mold of Dean.  Thus, like Westly (i.e. Westly’s connections to Ahnold), Angelides’ big question is unrelated to the issues: Electability.  The question for the California Democratic Party is whether they believe he would be the best candidate to face Arnold Schwarzenegger in November.

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Abramoff Lite – Brent Wilkes

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(You smell that stench? it’s coming from Doolittle’s direction… – promoted by SFBrianCL)

San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes once boasted to a potential business partner that for a $1.5 million dollar investment in lobbying, he could achieve a nearly 1000% return in profits. Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune continues its fine reporting on Brent Wilkes and the various members of the Republican Congress on his payroll.

From 1995 to 2005, as Wilkes got federal funding for his family of small defense companies, he steered more than $600,000 in contributions to lawmakers and their political action committees.

The biggest beneficiary was House Appropriations Committee member John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay, who received at least $82,000 from Wilkes, his close relatives, employees and business partners. Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis of Redlands received $60,000. Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, got $39,200.

See who’s next for Wilkes in the extended.

These are Wilkes’ “legal” political contributions. During the same time frame, Wilkes was paying former congressman, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, $630,000 in bribes.

Wilkes had a profound understanding of the procurement process and the roll that members of congress such as Doolittle, Lewis, Hunter and Cunningham could play in insuring that his ventures got public money without the distractions of competitive bidding or even without evidence of demand for their products from the Department of Defense.

The UT article chronicles the growth of Wilkes’s flagship company, ADCS, during the same period of time in which Wilkes and his associates were throwing money at the members of congress who could do the most to help insure that ADCS got millions in earmarked funds. It didn’t bother Wilkes or his allies in Congress that no one needed or wanted ADCS’s product.

The military never asked for the ADCS projects. In fact, in 2000 the Pentagon’s inspector general blasted the company’s biggest project, a $9.7 million contract to convert documents in Panama. The report said the program was created under pressure from two congressmen, whom Pentagon procurement officials have identified as Cunningham and Hunter.

After the report was released, federal funding for ADCS’s document conversion work dropped from more than $22.8 million in fiscal 2001 to $10.4 million in fiscal 2002.

With the Department of Defense resisting addition wasted tax dollars on ADCS, Wilkes looked for another means of prying some tax dollars loose. He continued to use his California connection of Doolittle, Lewis, Cunningham and Hunter, but he realized that for his next round of earmarks, a heavier hitter would be required.

As ADCS lost steam, Wilkes began looking for a new product to win federal contracts. What he found in early 2002 was a sound wave technology being developed by scientists associated with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla.

The technology, which was being prepared for commercial use, already had drawn the attention of Poway businessman Max Gelwix. At the time, Gelwix was president of Eco-Soil Systems, a company that developed soil treatments for farms and golf greens.

Gelwix had met with some of the scientists and thought their discovery could be used to weed out background noises from electronic communications on the battlefield, in tanks or on aircraft carriers.

Wilkes, who lived in the same Poway neighborhood as Gelwix, offered to use his contacts in Congress to help Gelwix get military contracts.

Wilkes soon introduced Gelwix to Tom DeLay.

On March 24, 2002, the two businessmen and several of their associates joined DeLay for a three-day golf tour that hopped from Torrey Pines to Bighorn Country Club in Palm Desert to the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.

Within two weeks, Wilkes and his wife, Regina, Wilkes’ lobbyist and nephew, Joel Combs, along with Gelwix and Eco-Soil Chairman William Bain Adams Jr. donated a total of $25,000 to DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, or ARMPAC.”

[…]

On June 14, 2002, Gelwix founded PerfectWave to develop the sound wave technology. The joint venture gave Wilkes 51 percent of the company.

That same day, the DeLay campaign cashed a $1,000 check from lobbyist Combs. Less than a month later, Wilkes hired the Alexander Strategy Group – a lobbying firm with close ties to DeLay – to help win appropriations from defense and intelligence agencies. Between 2002 and 2005, Wilkes paid the firm $630,000.

The lobbyists assigned to Wilkes’ account included Ed Buckham, DeLay’s former chief of staff, who founded the firm; Tony Rudy, DeLay’s former deputy chief of staff; and Karl Gallant, the head of ARMPAC.”

[…]

On Oct. 10, 2002, the House passed a budget containing the first PerfectWave earmark, totaling $1 million. The funding was to go to Wilkes’ flagship company, ADCS, as the prime contractor, with PerfectWave as a subcontractor.

The next week, Wilkes and his associates gave $7,000 to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Fresno, on the Ways and Means Committee; $6,000 to House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the third-highest ranking member of Congress; $3,000 to Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Riverside, on the Appropriations Committee, and $2,000 to Doolittle, a key backer of the PerfectWave earmark.

The day after President Bush signed the budget, Wilkes gave $10,000 to one of Doolittle’s political action committees.

This is the Republican Party at work. Men like Doolittle, Lewis, Hunter, Cunningham and DeLay have no problems cutting programs for the poor, the elderly, veterans, etc.; but when a Republican rainmaker appears and offers them campaign contributions in exchange for slopping some taxpayers dollars his way, they fall all over themselves to make it happen.

Republican apologists will tell us that the campaign system is to blame, not the candidates. To get elected these men needed money and they had to work with men like Brent Wilkes to get it.

Guess what? That’s a load of crap. Doolittle, Lewis, Hunter, Cunningham and DeLay went out of their way to find men like Brent Wilkes. Republican businessmen, who are as ethically challenged as are they. Men who understood that a “quid pro quo” arrangement didn’t have to be formalized in a contract to take place.

Men who enjoyed the opportunities and life style that pay-to-play politics afforded them.

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Mud in the Water – CA-50

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Today’s North County Times takes a look at what might be the beginning of a nasty turn in the crowded race for Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s vacated seat in the CA-50.

For the last few months, Republican political consultants, campaign managers and others have been predicting the 50th Congressional District race to replace former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham would turn into a mudslinging free-for-all.

It appears the pundits may have been right. 

In recent days, two so-called hit pieces —- campaign fliers or e-mails that portray a candidate in the worst possible light and often contain half-truths —- have surfaced. One was an e-mail containing a memorandum that cast former Congressman and Republican candidate Brian Bilbray as a liberal with questionable ethics.

Another scathing piece attacked congressional candidate and state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, as an alleged supporter of embryonic stem cell research. Morrow vigorously denies that allegation. Many conservatives strongly oppose the scientific research, saying it supports abortion. Defenders say it holds the promise of an eventual cure to many diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

See extended for more mud.

It’s hard to keep track of all the Republican candidates in the CA-50 race. Last week, there were 11, 12 if you count, Chris Young, who claims to be a Democrat, but who has the same political platform as her neighbor, Bill Morrow.

Are any of the Republican candidates behind these hit pieces? Assuming that no candidate receives a simple majority (50% +1) in the April primary, then only one Republican will go forward to run against Democrat Francine Busby in the June run-off elections. So, it would seem that the critical thing that members of the crowded Republican field can do to get to a potential run-off would be to knock down the front-runners in their own party first. Certainly, one of the Republican front-runners, Brian Bilbray thinks that he is taking fire from his own side.

“This is a calculated dirty-tricks campaign against me,” Bilbray said last week.

Bilbray, who served in Congress from 1996 to 2000, said he believes the anonymous e-mail was sent to the newspaper by a Republican, not a Democrat.

“The one way to attack without being blamed for it is to do it anonymously through the Internet. I am used to the Democratic machine doing so, but it’s sad to see Republicans doing the same stuff,” he said.

Bilbray and Morrow are the Republican front runners. They are being attacked for not being conservative enough. Most of the other Republicans in the race are moderates. What do they gain by portraying the front runners as being more like them? The only Republican candidates who stand to gain by painting Bilbray and Morrow as liberals are those less know individuals to the right of Bilbray and Morrow. Actually the number on the far right of Morrow and Bilbray is just one, Howard Kaloogian.

Hard to imagine that the guy behind Move American Forward, an astroturf organization that is out to get the UN out of the US and which routinely attacks free speech as treason, would use his right wing connections to go after his main rivals.

In fairness to little Howard, it could also be Bilbray and Morrow supporters beating up on each other.  For Kaloogian, the result is the same.  His wingnut credentials are unassailable. 

More on the CA-50 at Words Have Power.

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Doolittle’s Abramoff Connections

Dan Walters at the Sac Bee wrote a great article about John Doolittle’s ties to the now infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

What’s evident is that [Doolittle] wrote letters in 2003 to federal officials that sided with Abramoff’s clients on disputes – a fact that was uncovered by the Associated Press. The letters appear to undercut Doolittle’s rote assertions that he’s opposed to gambling and has had no improper dealings with Abramoff, whose ties to politicians are being investigated by federal prosecutors after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud. Before the AP revealed the letters, Doolittle – who has ducked direct questioning by reporters – insisted on a radio talk show that he welcomes any investigation. Sac Bee 2/3/06

Check out the flip…

Now, Walters notes, and I agree that “Unless prosecutors turn up a smoking gun, it’s likely that Doolittle will remain a congressman for many years.” There is a lot of evidence against him, but not that one smoking gun.  It’s unfortunate.  However, his seat is a very safe GOP seat. 

But, it is definitely another example of another corrupt Republican.  While the evidence may not be perfect, there is plenty:

What’s evident is that he wrote letters in 2003 to federal officials that sided with Abramoff’s clients on disputes – a fact that was uncovered by the Associated Press. The letters appear to undercut Doolittle’s rote assertions that he’s opposed to gambling and has had no improper dealings with Abramoff, whose ties to politicians are being investigated by federal prosecutors after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud.

***

Were it just two letters, one could agree that there’s smoke but no fire. But one of Abramoff’s tribes helped by a Doolittle letter, based in Mississippi, later made a $5,000 campaign contribution to the congressman – part of the $130,000 Doolittle has received from gambling tribes with ties to Abramoff. Furthermore, Abramoff hired Doolittle’s wife as a consultant and placed a former Doolittle aide on his payroll. Those and other facts add up to a pretty cozy relationship between Doolittle and Abramoff – more than mere coincidence.

The GOP in California, especially the House delegation, is corrupt.  Perhaps if we keep repeating the mantra “culture of corruption” we can take back a few of the seats.  Plus, it can’t hurt with the Governor’s race.

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the California five

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(Take back the House! – promoted by SFBrianCL)

I was at a party for East Bay Young Democrats the other night…and one of the activists there grilled me on who the vulnerable Congressional Democrats in California are based on the analysis I did with Joshua Grossman: Starting with the Districts

Here they are, in all their glory.  The California Five.  We’ll all be talking a lot more about these districts as the year progresses.

The California Five:

  • CA-11, Richard Pombo
  • CA-26, David Dreier
  • CA-50, Vacant (formely Duke Cunningham)
  • CA-24, Elton Gallegly
  • CA-45, Mary Bono

    • These are the five vulnerable GOP districts in California….districts whose voters are most open to a Democratic message but are now represented by Republicans.

    Pombo, Dreier, Gallegly and Bono are all cogs in the machine that’s brought Californians the corrupt mess in Washington exemplified by Cunningham and DeLay.  All four of them voted YES on the recent Budget Bill gutting student loans and Medicare.  You can see by their voting records on Progressive Punch that there is virtually NO DIFFERENCE between these four.  No daylight, no moderation.  With the GOP, it’s a rubber stamp congress.  When they say they’re independent…we have to say BS.

    We need five credible candidates, five well-funded campaigns, five grass roots fueled efforts…and we need to roll up our sleeves and use the blogosphere to make it known that with the GOP voting in lock step for two decades: as much as they’d like to pretend otherwise…they’re all tied to Tom DeLay.

    I know that there is a ton of work to do in each one of these districts.  There is no time to lose.

    I’m posting here on Calitics because, we NEED this blog, we NEED this discussion.

    Anyone interested in these races or in coordinating activism state-wide please write me at:

    kidoaklandactivism”at”comcast.net

    I’m all ears.

    Health Care

    Migden goes midevil on Walmart’s Ass

    Well, after Maryland passed the anti-WalMart law you knew California was going to be right behind them.  And Sen Migden introduced such a bill to the Senate today:

    Sacramento — California’s largest employers would be required to prop up the state’s medical insurance program for the poor if they don’t offer their workers generous enough health benefits under a bill set for introduction in the Senate.

    Modeled after a law passed earlier this month in Maryland that only affected mega-retailer Wal-Mart, the California legislation would require employers of more than 10,000 to spend at least 8 percent of total wages on health benefits.

    If they don’t, the company would contribute the difference between what it does pay and the 8 percent threshold to Medi-Cal, the state’s health care provider of last resort. (SF Chronicle 2/2/06)

    Well, employers of more than 10,000 who don’t pay for health insurance…hmmm, who would that be?  Well, of course, only WalMart meets those classifications.  Poor Sam Walton must be quivering in his grave. 

    All jokes aside, this is probably a reasonable measure.  8% isn’t really that high, very attainable for any company that doesn’t purposely attempt too shift the health care costs to the state.  Let’s face it people, that’s the real reason Walmart is so darn cheap.  If you could get the state to pay for you workers insurance, sure that Mom and Pop place could compete.  Well maybe if the Mom and Pop places joined together with other Mom and Pop places to buy together for those volume discounts.  But that’s neither here nor there.

    It’s a cute idea, and one that makes a strong symbolic statement.  But, at some point our government must realize that our companies cannot compete in the global market with these soaring health care costs.  Single-payer insurance is really the only feasible answer.  We need the government to ensure that the citizens don’t have to worry about health care.  It’s gotta happen at some point, right Hillary?

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    The Governor’s in Debt!

    ( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

    Wow! The Dems are in a better cash position than the GOP candidate for once:

    SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is entering his reelection campaign $410,000 in debt, while his Democratic rivals and union foes are armed with more than $50 million.

    Schwarzenegger spent $8.2 million of his own money, and tens of millions more of his contributors’ money, on his ill-fated special election effort to change state government. Altogether, his campaign cost more than $45 million, depleting his accounts.
    Controller Steve Westly and Treasurer Phil Angelides, who are competing in the Democratic primary to face the Republican governor next November, started the new year with $24 million and $17.1 million respectively, their reports show.(LA Times 2/1/06

    Well, maybe that special election was good for something after all.  Oh and just to remind you, Ahnold’s staffers are still getting paid out of his campaign coffers:

    He also continued supplementing his aides’ government salaries by paying them additional sums in campaign money, according to campaign reports filed with the state Tuesday.