STOCKTON - An energized Phil Angelides brought his underdog campaign for governor through Stockton on Monday, part of a two-day tour of the state that the Democrat hopes will shift political momentum his way.
Angelides' rhetoric has grown fiercer in recent days. Monday he called Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a liar and a wolf in sheep's clothing, a man who will resurrect the proposals California voters rejected in the 2005 special election.
Angelides, down by about 15 percentage points in most recent polling, wants to be the first challenger to deny a sitting governor a second term since Earl Warren beat Culbert Olson in 1942.
He has a long way to go and only 28 days to get there.
About 100 people attended the late-morning rally, most of them union members or party activists. Angelides is expected to carry this Democrat-heavy city, but he must campaign hard to win the San Joaquin Valley's other major cities: Modesto, Merced and Fresno.
All were on the state treasurer's itinerary during the tour, and he received his best welcome in Modesto, where about 200 people came to see him speak Monday morning at the Sportsmen's Club of Stanislaus. His crowds in Fresno and Merced were far smaller, according to news reports of the events there.
Angelides is vowing not to go down without a fight. He noted, only half in jest, that Stockton was the site of one of his "great victories" - winning a 12-and-younger tennis championship.
"I beat a kid that day I'd never beaten before," he said. "I did then what I'm going to do in 29 days: I'm going to fight, and I'm going to scrap, and I'm going to win this title for you."
Angelides said Schwarzenegger lied during Saturday's debate about never cutting education and never wanting to take pensions away from firefighters and police officers.
Schwarzenegger did back measures to alter the way California's public employees earn pensions - the state currently offers one of the most-lavish pension plans in the nation - as well as a proposal to suspend the Proposition 98 education guarantee when state revenues are not faring well.
But the governor has increased spending on education and had the pension measure pulled when it was revealed it could affect the pensions of surviving spouses.
Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Katie Levinson said Angelides is flailing.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures for the Angelides campaign," Levinson said. "Phil Angelides' decision to take his campaign rhetoric from shrill to nasty will backfire when voters compare the governor's record to Phil Angelides' record of supporting tax hikes."
Chief among those tax increases is the so-called tractor tax, an exemption on sales taxes for certain farm equipment and fuel that most Valley farmers say they need to compete on the world market and offset the cost of state regulations. California farmers are the most regulated in the United States.
Angelides has said he would consider abolishing that exemption, which saves farmers about $100million a year.
Two tractors circled Angelides' rally Monday, and former San Joaquin Farm Bureau Federation chief Kenny Watkins said Angelides has snubbed the agricultural community.
"When Phil Angelides proposed a $100million tax hike on the agricultural community, he showed us that he is clearly not on our side," Watkins said.
But the union members who rallied with Angelides on Monday took a different view.
They say the treasurer's focus on services for working-class Californians - which is how Angelides says he would spend the tax revenue gained by closing "corporate loopholes" - and his recognition of unions' place in the state make him by far their best choice.
"I'm very interested in health care for all. Providing for that calls for the best in all of us," Stockton peace activist Ria DeGroot said.
Manteca labor organizer Nan Brasmer said she was interested in expanding access to health care as well.
"I'm retired but want to leave a legacy of a fair and equitable retirement for those who come after me," said Brasmer, a California State Employees Association member who leads the California Alliance of Retired Americans.
"He would appreciate our professional abilities in a way the current administration does not," Anne McCaughey, president of the 2,400-member Stockton Teachers Association, said of Angelides.
Angelides' tour continued into the Bay Area after its hourlong stop in Stockton. The treasurer heads to Los Angeles today.
