Westly's problem is that he's too rich. Dial back the tape to 1998 and you will see much of 2006 in that race. You had Al Cheechi, Jane Harman, and Gray Davis. Cheechi was a rich executive from Northwest Airlines. Harman had been a Congresswoman from Venice and the South Bay. And then there was Joe "Gray" Davis who had held a million state offices.

In the early going, Davis was dead last, starting his campaign in San Francisco...going negative until he was the last man standing, moving on to disptaching Dan Lungren. And this time, it's the same old problem for Westly and Lockyer against Angelides.

Westly's wealth won't compensate for the endorsement of people like Barbara Boxer, and Lockyer's past as a tobacco shill in the State Senator is ripe for Angelides to split. He or she who best understands the machine wins in California.

I personally don't think it is a knock on him. But appearantly you MyDD people think it is a cardinal sin.

I don't know much about any of the leading Democrats other than Lockyer seemed to have shot his wad and so did Bustamonte (sp?) but b/w Angelidies and Westly, I have no clue other than Westly is better looking and richer than Angelidies.

I hope that isn't too subtle. I would appreciate it if we could dispense with the unjustified personal attacks that have no basis in fact. With the exception of risenmessiah, there has been absolutely no substantive comment or discussion of the issues facing California voters. If you folks continue to drop flaming bags of poop on my diaries, I am perfectly capable of trashing your diaries for your candidate.

Let's not go down that road. Deal?

I don't care if he is a member of the DLC -- lots of ambitious Democrats are (or were).  

California is a big State. There are lots of issues here, and no Governor has seriously addressed them for over 20 years, and I'm not kidding. It would be easy to write something savvy here about energy or jobs or utility companies or housing or education -- but the clean-up job is now much, much bigger than that because of the assiduous neglect of the past three Republican Governors and one inept Democratic Governor.

Westly's first order of business should to take a good, hard, objective look at the entire State then set some priorities for the people who live and work here.

His second priority should be to define several strong policy goals addressing large, Statewide problems, and to communicate them strongly and repeatedly to voters around the State. Along the way, he needs to start a no-holds-barred  progressive reform of our Election laws our campaign financing laws.

California has been crippled for four years from wave after wave of surprise private sector layoffs. The real unemployment rate here has been over ten percent for four years now -- double what the "official" Labor Department figures admit to. Skilled workers have left our State in the hundreds' of thousands. If Westly (as a former CEO) doesn't favor more employee rights and better benefits for the people he has personally helped to lay off here, then I won't vote for him. This is not personal; I have never worked for eBay.

Mister Boatright, political discussions are always a confrontational business. Gently put, I suggest that you thicken your skin just a little.

sc

Back when the Gov was the colossus of the Great State (67% approval ratings!!), it was hard to separate Westly's lips from those steroid-enhanced glutes.

Now, Lockyer has an issue here as well, of course. He caught six kinds of Hell for revealing in 2003 that he planned to vote FOR Ahnuld in the recall election.

Both of these guys can spin their way out of this with something along the lines of "We wanted to give this guy a chance, but he is just flat wrong for the good people of this fair state..."

However, I have to give Angelides a small leg up, if only because he has been the only CONSISTENT anti-Ahnuld voice in Sacramento.

BTW, I still like Westly better than the other two guys...I am just pointing out a potential line of attack in a Dem primary.

That doesn't seem unreasonable, until you realize that both here and at Daily Kos, considered by many to be the shining beacons of the left wing blogosphere, we have a lower level of civil political discourse than Bill O'Reilly.

Why on earth would any politician want to subject themselves to the kind of immature, ignorant and frequently abusive personal attacks that make Bill O'Reilly look like the patron saint of civil political discourse?

When Angelides spoke the crowd was very responsive and about two thirds of them gave him a standing O.  When Westly spoke, it was difficult to hear him because most of the room was ignoring him and engaging in conversation.  [This is a disease that permeates Democratic Party gatherings, one that contrasts with Republicans who are almost always more orderly and respectful of speakers.]

Neither one had a particularly interesting or great speech, a few shots at Arnold and many references to women's issues.

I disagree, however, about his prospects for governor.

First, as I've commented before at Marching Orders, I think he has some serious image management problems (see here).

Second, his formerly close relationship with Arnold is going to prove to be a political liability both among Democratic voters in the primary (because he used to be chummy with Schwarzenegger) and among Republicans in a general election (because he turned on Arnold when the wind changed) -- for that analysis, and an example of the tracks Westly left as he's attempted to morph from Arnold's good buddy to his trash-talking adversary, see here.

I would love to hear what folks had to say about this analysis, so feel free to drop by and give comments.