Tag Archives: Cathy Calfo

California

Lord Help Us

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Please tell me this is a joke:

[Phil Angelides] had just finished a four-hour meeting with his three closest advisors – media guru Bill Carrick, campaign manager Cathy Calfo and Democratic Party strategist Bob Mulholland. Everyone had thick binders under their arms. […]

The meeting at the 33rd Street Bistro was to plan his comeback in California politics, which seemed sort of astonishing to the people at my table. Isn’t he, like, a loser?

Mulholland came over and suggested Angelides would be a candidate in 2010 for governor or another higher office (U.S. Senate, if Barbara Boxer leaves?). He mentioned other politicians who lost big elections – Bill Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Alan Cranston – and then came back to win higher office. Cranston, Mulholland said today in a telephone conversation, announced immediately after losing reelection for state controller in 1966 that he would run for U.S. Senate in 1968. Reporters dismissed him as crazy – he was, after all, a loser – but Cranston won.

Mulholland said Angelides has been active in Democratic politics for 15 years and “still has another good 15 years in him.” He said he wants to play a big part in getting a Democratic president elected in 2008, and would look to something for himself in 2010. “Phil will not be running for Board of Equalization, let’s just put it that way,” Mulholland said. “I will guarantee that you will see a very active Phil Angelides in politics.”

All of this seems sort of delusional to me.

Me too.

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CA-Gov: Recognizing the ‘roots

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A profile of Cathy Calfo in the SacBee yields a review of the importance of the grassroots, even in a mega-media market heavy state like California.

During the darkest hours of Phil Angelides’ campaign for governor this spring, when fellow Democrat Steve Westly led by double digits, the airwaves sizzled with negativity and the second-guessers worked overtime, Cathy Calfo kept the plan in focus.

“I hear. People call you. Everybody has an opinion,” Calfo, Angelides’ campaign manager, said last week. “The truth was, we did have a campaign strategy. We knew exactly where we were heading. … We had a good campaign plan.”

In the end, Calfo believes, it was the grass-roots network in that plan — the endorsements, the thousands of contributors and lists of environmental backers — that carried Angelides over the top in the Democratic primary. (SacBee  6/12/06)

I think if you have to point to one reason that Angelides won, it is the grassroots support that Angelides has.  It’s the reason that Angelides dominated the Bay Area.  He had the support of the Clubs, their slate mailers, etc.  In elections where only the faithful turned out, the grassroots makes the difference. 

In retrospect, Westly would have been much better off with a positive campaign.  He needed atypical voters, independents, etc.  In short, he needed to really run that different kind of campaign, that invigorated the electorate.  But South and his crew ended up going the other way.

The race against Arnold will be a totally different race with a totally different dynamic.  The grassroots will be critical to any Angelides victory strategy.