By Karen Ocamb

Westly who? In his race to become the next governor of California, State Treasurer Phil Angelides is basically ignoring his Democratic rival in the June primary State Controller Steve Westly, and is focusing like a laser beam on ousting Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If the 24-page endorsement list filled with reams of elected officials, including the state's LGBT Caucus, as well as labor, environment, community and LGBT leaders, is any indication, one might think Angelides had the race sewn up.

"I think Phil Angelides is the only one running for governor this year who is truly qualified for the many requirements of such a complicated job. He has vision, experience, integrity and great politics," state Sen. Sheila Kuehl told IN Los Angeles magazine.

Of course, it helps that Angelides was chair of the California Democratic Party in the banner year of 1992 when Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein were elected with the promise of dispersing the dark pall hanging over America. When he was elected chair in 1991, he set an affirmative action goal of having 10 percent of the Californian delegates to the national convention come from the LGBT community. A proposal to adopt the "California Plan" is being considered by the DNC this year.

Angelides believes he is the Democratic champion who can answer the progressives' clarion call for a leader to "stand up" to tyrants of power and special interest.

"I was the first Democrat who stood up against Gov. Schwarzenegger when he was turning kids away from college; when he was denouncing [San Francisco Mayor] Gavin Newsom's courageous act to allow gay marriage in San Francisco. I was the first candidate to declare my candidacy against Gov. Schwarzenegger -- even when he had poll ratings as big as his box office receipts. And I became the first candidate to officially file, and as governor, I will always be first in standing up for fairness and opportunity, investment, and inclusion -- the very values that built the wealth and strength of our society," Angelides told IN at the Bonaventure Hotel on Valentine's Day, his first one-on-one interview since officially filing his candidacy papers in Sacramento that morning.

It was a special day for Angelides, having his wife Julie, daughter Megan and his parents by his side as he officially took steps to become the next governor. "My mother came here as a young woman," he said. "I remember when I was 10 years old, my mother studied for her citizenship test -- and what a big moment it was when she became a citizen -- and she was crying this morning. It was a wonderful moment for our family, but very much emblematic of the California story where a son of immigrants can have a chance to be governor of this great state."

But Angelides takes pains to illustrate the difference between his story about his family's immigration from Greece and that of Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I've never forgotten where my family came from," Angelides said. "I've never forgotten that in each and every step along the way, as hard as my family's worked, we've gotten a hand up. The fact is that my grandmother worked day and night as a seamstress -- 15 hours a day -- so that my father could go to college. But thank God there was this great free public university -- the University of California at Berkeley -- that was there as an opportunity. Growing up, my parents sacrificed and saved for me, but like in many families, they didn't always get the breaks."

Born June 12, 1953, in Sacramento, Angelides' father lost his state engineering job when Angelides was a teenager. "There were some very hard times in our family but we knew we wouldn't be left out in the cold," Angelides said.

Angelides first learned about discrimination from his family. At a young age, his father told him how Asians, mostly Japanese and Chinese, couldn't buy homes in his neighborhood "because the realtors and developers wouldn't sell to them." Though that barrier was broken down a few years later, his father emphasized, "how wrong it was that the people he worked with -- shared a desk with [at the university] -- weren't allowed the same things he was allowed. And he also told me that growing up as a kid in San Francisco with parents who never spoke English, he was subjected to the ethnic epithets 'dirty Greek' [and] 'stupid Greek.' The Greeks [and] the Italians at that time were the new immigrants, the equivalent of the new immigrants to our society -- today's Latinos and Southeast Asians," Angelides said.

"My dad said, 'No matter how well you do in life, I never want you to forget where you came from, the struggles your grandparents went through and the struggles other people went through," Angelides said. "But if you make it, don't think you made just because you were so special. Never forget all the breaks you got. Never forget there are millions of people who work each and every day -- sometimes 15 hours a day, just to survive and never get a break from anyone -- don't forget them. So from a young age, I was always taught by my parents that the world was uneven -- and never forget that there are people discriminated against, people who got no breaks. Never forget that we need to give people chances."

Hard work, good grades, financial aid, and student loans got him to Harvard University in 1970 where he was a government major. Galvanized by the campus tumult to stop Richard Nixon's re-election and the idealistic belief that activists could change the world, the anti-establishment 19-year-old returned to Sacramento to take on a popular incumbent in the local city council race, according to the Sacramento Bee. He lost, but the process introduced him to liberal politicos who would become allies.

One such longtime friend is African American philosopher and activist Cornell West, also a Sacramento native, whom Angelides met during their first week at Harvard.

Angelides graduated in 1974 and took a job in the California Housing and Community Development agency, during which time he met his wife Julie, a legislative staffer. They married in 1983 and now have three daughters.

After losing another city council race in 1977, Angelides shifted his attention to business, becoming a developer with another Greek -American, Angelo Tsakopoulos. Eventually, according to the Bee, Angelides formed his own company, River West, made his fortune, and struggled with his beliefs in "smart growth" and the realities of development sprawl.

In 1988, jazzed by the presidential candidacy of fellow Greek-American Michael Dukakis, Angelides jumped back in the political saddle. Soon he was elected as Democratic state party chair, and in 1994, again sought public office. The primary race against former state Sen. David Roberti was brutal, with Angelides running a TV ad linking Roberti's opposition to abortion with the shooting death of a doctor at a Florida abortion clinic. It was the kind of slash-and-burn tactic that was hard to forgive or forget, including among gay Democrats. Angelides lost the general election to Republican Mat Fong. He tried for the State Treasurer's job again in 1998, won, and handily won re-election in 2002.

Angelides said there are two things that moved him to vigorously support marriage equality. "The first was my own daughters who said, 'Dad this is the right thing -- it's where we're going and we want you to be part of it.' But it's also the fact that I have personal friends who are in loving relationships -- people I've know for decades and it's hard not to look at their relationships and see the same love and trust and strength that Julie and I draw from our relationship," Angelides said, mentioning that former LGBT lobbyist Laurie McBride was at his candidacy filing ceremony. "So I'm touched by it in the sense that people I know, respect, and love have been denied the very right that Julie and I so treasure."

Unlike Westly, Angelides did not reel off the names of LGBT employees in his Treasury office or on his campaign staff. "We don't inquire as to people's personal lifestyles, but we have a very diverse office" and campaign, he said.

"I believe I'm building the right kind of campaign -- not just to win an election, but to build a movement for progressive change," Angelides said. "I believe my campaign will ultimately win because it comes from the heart and we're going to do the work of hard organizing to make sure our passions become belief. I believe that Californians, particularly progressives, are ready for someone who will stand up for what's right, who will put themselves on the side of ordinary people, and who will really do the work of improving our schools, building our transportation network and enlarging civil liberties. That's what leaders do."

For more information about Angelides' campaign, go to www.angelides.com.