Less than 48 hours after “King of Mean” Garry South was left calling the shots in the Gavin Newsom campaign for Governor, the SF Chronicle had a front-page piece attacking Jerry Brown.  Apparently, Brown fundraising for his favorite charities carries all sorts of “conflict-of-interest” allegations that voters should be mindful about in next year’s election.  But this wasn’t the first time reporter Carla Marinucci went on the attack to help Garry South’s clients.  In the last gubernatorial race, Marinucci used her perch at the Chronicle to repeatedly go after rival Phil Angelides – who was locked in a nasty primary fight against South client Steve Westly.  On March 16, 2006, Marinucci wrote a story on Angelides that strangely resembled yesterday’s piece on Brown – attacking the state Treasurer for raising corporate donations to a non-profit.  South burned bridges in that race with his scorched-earth campaign against Angelides (and bad-mouthing the nominee after the primary was over), and it seems like he’s back to his old tricks.  But feeding stories to the Chronicle sounds like part of his modus operandi.

The 2006 Democratic primary fight between Steve Westly and Phil Angelides can best be described as a “murder-suicide pact” that accomplished nothing except re-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But while Angelides spent his time criticizing Westly’s positions (he attacked him for being “too close” to the Governor), Westly ran a smear campaign on Angelides that involved his connection with developers, a Lake Tahoe dredging project and a history of corporate fundraising.  It was classic Garry South tactics: throw a ton of money behind attack ads that tear down your rival, leaving everyone bloodied in the end.

And right there to rev up the engines under the guise of media “objectivity” was Carla Marinucci.  Her front-page Chronicle story on May 31, 2006 – one week before the election – focused on Angelides’ ties with real estate developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, repeating the Westly campaign’s discredited charge about connections with illegal dumping in Lake Tahoe.  Marinucci wrote numerous op-eds masquerading as “news analysis” during the race that made Angelides look bad, such as her May 1st piece that said he faced an “uphill climb” at winning the nomination, right after getting the Democratic Party’s endorsement.

Garry South didn’t stop his attacks on Angelides after his candidate lost the primary, and neither did the Chronicle’s Marinucci.  Barely two days after the nomination fight was over, she had another front-page “news analysis” that said Angelides would have to sell his platform to a “reluctant electorate.”  It was in that article where she quoted South as saying: “it would be hard to single out [Angelides’] biggest liability because he’s a walking Achilles heel … Arnold and his Karl Rove-trained wrecking crew will tear the guy apart, atom by atom.”  That piece set the tone for the rest of the campaign season, and Angelides went on to lose badly to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday’s attack on Jerry Brown was odd, because it’s not unusual for high-profile career politicians like Brown to fundraise for various charities – with donations coming from corporations.  Gavin Newsom does the same – such as the party he threw in Denver at the Democratic National Convention, which was sponsored by AT&T and PG&E.  But the implication of Marinucci’s article was clear – corporations will influence Jerry Brown by giving money to his favorite charities (where there are no donation limits), rather than contributing directly to his campaign.

But what makes this interesting is that Marinucci made almost the same accusation about Phil Angelides, back in 2006.  In a story published on March 16 as he faced Garry South’s candidate, Marinucci dredged up an 17-year-old story about Angelides raising wads of cash from corporate donors to the California Legislative Forum.  Just like her latest attack on Brown, Marinucci alleged the state Treasurer had found an end-run around campaign contribution limits to help rich donors influence elected officials.

At the time, my colleague Randy Shaw panned the story as a “classic example” of political propaganda.  “Arnold [Schwarzenegger] has raised millions from special interests while serving as California’s Governor,” he wrote.  “Angelides did his fundraising as a private citizen … There’s quite a difference between a Governor raising money from the special interests whose operations he oversees, and a private fundraiser who has no authority or influence over potential donors.”

Garry South ran Steve Westly’s campaign against Phil Angelides, and with Eric Jaye’s exit is now the chief strategist in Gavin Newsom’s campaign against Jerry Brown.  One can expect a seasoned campaign operative to push a partisan story against an opponent, although few do it as brazenly as South.  If the stories against Angelides and Brown had come directly from South, everyone would know the messenger had his own agenda.

But when the top political reporter of a major newspaper takes such attacks and puts them on the front page as “news,” it creates a serious problem with the public trust.  Marinucci appears to have recycled the same line of attack against Brown she used for Angelides, which calls into question whether Garry South is feeding her these stories.  It also sheds light on the Newsom campaign’s new strategy, and the direction South is taking it.

Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily, where this piece was first published.

(Why does the media hate Palin? That must be what it is! – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

When Steve Schmidt stopped working for Dick Cheney to come back to California and manage Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election, Carla Marinucci had a page B1 story on Schmidt which quoted Garry South as saying, “He’s been sitting on Karl Rove’s lap for the last five years.” And Bob Mulholland offered, “This guy has Cheney tattoos all over him.”

Yet by the time Schmidt went on to be the latest to take over John McCain’s campaign, he seemed to be walking on water with the press. The story announcing the move, again by Carla Marinucci, appeared on the front page. This time, the first quote was from his business partner saying it was a “good move” followed by quotes from a Republican. Finally, a token Democrat was quoted as saying all Democrats “respect his ability.” It was pure puff, no mention of him lying about taxes all through the gubernatorial campaign. No mention this time of his engineering of the Martha Alito crying stagecraft. No mention of the disarray in the McCain campaign. Just puff.

However, that relationship with the press went to hell the past few days.  

According to Joe Klein, Schmidt’s strategy is disgraceful:

Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press.

[…]

But the media coverage of the Palin story has been well within the bounds of responsibility. Schmidt is trying to make it seem otherwise, a desperate tactic.

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

How bad was this decision? An “insider and longtime friend” of Talking Points Memo said:

Campbell Brown isn’t the story – people are underestimating her, as they always have. No, the story is that Tucker Bounds went on national television without material to answer what is maybe the simplest, most straightforward follow-up question any reporter can ask: “What’s your evidence for that assertion?” And I suspect that the reason they canceled Larry King is not to punish CNN (it doesn’t work that way) it’s that they still couldn’t come up with an answer to the question by the time his show aired.

Now look at this comment from McCain honcho Steve Schmidt to Katie Couric last night: “Members of this campaign went to off-the-record lunches with reporters today, and they were asked if she would do paternity tests to prove paternity for her last child. Smear after smear after smear, and it’s disgraceful and it’s wrong. And the American people are going to reject it overwhelmingly when they see her.”

First of all, that’s the first time I’ve heard anyone in the campaign/political press throw out the notion of paternity tests. So Schmidt is to blame for bringing that issue into the mainstream. If anyone is smearing the candidate, it’s Schmidt. This is as cynical a tactic as I’ve ever seen in politics.

Secondly, how can it be a “smear” if it was during an off the record lunch with McCain campaign aides?

Thirdly, hey, colleagues, you’re on notice: Steve Schmidt does not respect “off the record.” Watch your backs, my friends.

Will the press do their job, or cave to Schmidt?

UPDATE: Brian Williams read part of Joe Klein post cited above in the post-game show on MSNBC. Seems like a clear choice for the press, will be interesting to see who does what.

UPDATE II: Tomorrow’s New York Times:

The convention has already included some of the most intense attacks against journalists by a campaign in memory, with Mr. McCain’s aides accusing them of biased, sexist and generally unfair coverage of his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

In the first three days here, Mr. McCain’s aides have sent out news releases criticizing individual reporters for their coverage. They have canceled an interview with Larry King of CNN to protest what they viewed as unfair questioning of a spokesman by Campbell Brown. They have dismissed as “fiction” an article in The New York Times about the process of vetting Ms. Palin. And Mr. McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, has accused journalists here of pursuing a “mission to destroy” Ms. Palin with “a new level of viciousness.”

[…]

A former McCain strategist, Mike Murphy, agreed, saying, “The greatest of McCain is no cynicism, and it is cynical.”

Will the corporate media roll over?

A poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps, surveying us folks in the 18-29 age group, show that 50-60% of us believe the Democrats are better on any given issue than the Republicans. It’s a portrait of a generation that grew up under conservative rule – and by witnessing its effects and costs firsthand, has utterly rejected it.

But in the first traditional media article on this quite significant poll, Carla Marinucci tells a rather odd story about this. To her, the only story here is that young voters dislike the Republican Party. Which we do, no doubt about it. But her article is filled with quotes from Republicans young and old about why we’ve abandoned them.

Nowhere does she ask the more obvious question: why are we so strongly identifying with Democrats? If it was just alienation from Republicans why don’t we become apathetic? Why aren’t we identifying as independents?

I’ve got more to say, but before the flip, I want to cut to the chase: we have a lot of people here age 18-29. In the comments, do what Marinucci refused to do: explain why you don’t just reject the Republicans, but also why you so strongly embrace the Democrats. Why are you a proud Democrat?

Some examples of Marinucci’s rather odd framing of these poll results:

Young Americans have become so profoundly alienated from Republican ideals…The startling collapse of GOP support among young voters…The anti-GOP shift for this generation…

The only Democrat quoted is our old buddy Garry South, who has this to say:

Schwarzenegger’s success at the polls won’t translate to other Republican candidates.

South pointed toward the recent state budget battle, which pitted Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislators against conservative GOP senators who delayed the $145 billion budget for almost two months to pressure for more cuts and protections for businesses against environmental lawsuits.

The demands of the state senators, South said, were so far to the right of the average voter that “the Republican brand in California now is so tainted and toxic that the only way you’re going to win is to buy yourself out of the brand.”

Here, South is absolutely right about the suicide pact that is the California Senate Republican caucus. But wouldn’t it have made sense to give readers some other sense of why we young folks are flocking to the Democrats? Couldn’t Marinucci have spoken to some young Democrats as well as young Republicans, young conservatives?

Consider it a kind of political migration. Demographers and historians have long understood that in any migration, there are two factors that must be explained if you are to understand that migration: push factors, and pull factors. Marinucci explains the push factor, but has nothing at all to say of the pull factor. In framing the story as she does, she misses a chance to educate her readers about what is actually behind this phenomenon.

The number of young voters is rising, both in raw numbers as well as our percentage turnout. And we’re voting for Democrats, in large numbers. If Marinucci really does believe this could have an effect on electoral politics for “generations to come” then shouldn’t she explain why we are embracing the Democrats?

I’m 28 years old, still in the age group this study showed had turned so far left. Why do I vote for Democrats? Why do I favor them on the issues? Why do I believe they are better for California and America than the Republicans?

I did not always support the Democrats. Although I abandoned my youthful, immature conservatism in high school, when I first registered to vote in 1997 I registered as a Green. I was an active campaigner for Ralph Nader in 2000, believing the Democrats to be too close to the Republicans on most major isuses.

When I moved to Washington State in 2001 I learned that one does not declare a party affiliation at registration. Which suited me fine, I considered myself a left-wing independent, still alienated from the Democrats, although I still rejected the Republicans utterly.

But when I returned to California in June, I did indeed register as a Democrat. What changed?

While I still find myself in passionate – and sometimes bitter – disagreement with the actions of elected Democrats, I believe they represent my own values far more than any Republican ever can or will.

Republicans have destroyed California, I’ve seen it happen over the course of my life. They call themselves a political party but are in truth little more than a protection racket for a minority of residents: white suburban homeowners over the age of 40. Although not all in that group are Republican – many in fact are Dems – it is that group that Republican policies and rhetoric are designed to aid. (Even if, in fact, those white suburban homeowners don’t benefit from Republican government – the only consistent beneficiaries are the wealthy, and large businesses).

Republicans have destroyed our infrastructure, our schools, our health care system, our public services. Their zealotry on tax cuts has saddled us young folks with huge loan debts and yet their tax cuts have also failed to create jobs or earning power for us, as a California Budget Project study revealed last week. And they insist on attacking us, or our friends. When we see attacks on gays or on Latinos or on African Americans, we see not scapegoating of outsiders, but vicious assaults on ourselves, or on people we have always been close to.

But we don’t just reject the policies that have screwed us younger folks. We actively embrace the Democrats. In stark contrast to the Republicans, the Dems offer actual solutions. These solutions aren’t always good enough – but it’s the promise that the Democrats can be convinced to embrace our agenda, the belief that the old Democratic Party of the mid-20th century – liberals of the New Deal – can be reborn.

Many of us young people lack health care, or find that what coverage we do have leaves our wallets empty. Democrats, led by Senator Sheila Kuehl, offer us a single-payer universal health care program. Dems fight for more funding for schools, so that we can get an affordable education. They fight for more infrastructure projects, especially mass transit, so we can get around safely, without having to rely on a car (thus saving us money). Led by Rep. Hilda Solis, they want to create green jobs, so that all of us can have a better economic future in the 21st century.

And Democrats embrace us. They aren’t a protection racket for well-off middle-aged white folks, the Dems instead welcome and support young voters, and their rich diversity.

It is because we believe the Democrats can offer us a better future that we embrace them. All the Republicans have to offer is a continuous extension of the 20th century, a model that has failed for most Californians. But as I’ve argued, it’s not just that we reject Republicanism. We embrace the Democrats. And as long as Carla Marinucci refuses to recognize that fact, the changing nature of California and American politics will escape her.