By Karen Ocamb

Steve Westly

While a few gay politicos expected the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to tighten close to the June 6 primary, no one thought presumptive winner state Treasurer Phil Angelides would seriously fall behind his opponent, state Controller Steve Westly. After all, Angelides, the former state party chair, started his race with reams of endorsements from almost all elected Democrats (including the LGBT Caucus, except Sen. Carole Migden) and numerous unions, the worker bees of political campaigns. Westly, meanwhile, was essentially "Westly who?"

But on April 11 the Sacramento Bee published an eye-opening interview with Angelides. "Look, I think I'm the underdog in this race right now," Angelides told the Bee. "I'm being outspent dramatically on TV and will be all the way to the finish line."

A Field Poll published April 14 confirmed the surprising turn of events. "In four successive Field Polls completed between June 2005 and February 2006, Angelides was maintaining a fairly consistent lead of eight to 11 points over Westly. However, in the last two months the pace of the Democratic nomination battle has picked up considerably. The campaigning has benefited Westly to a considerable degree, and he has opened up an 11-point lead -- 37 percent to 26 percent -- over Angelides. Another 3 percent favor other Democratic candidates, while 34 percent of Democratic primary voters remain undecided," wrote Field Poll authors Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field about findings from a statewide survey conducted April 3-10 among a random sample of likely voters.

"What it shows is that Democratic voters are responding to Steve Westly's positive message and upbeat style, and Phil Angelides' non-stop attack over the last week, week-and-a-half, has not worked, and has backfired," Garry South, senior adviser to the Westly campaign, told the San Jose Mercury News.

"Westly's been outspending us two to one on television," Angelides spokesperson Brian Brokaw told the Mercury News, adding that Westly is funding most of his own campaign. "But the California political landscape is littered with candidates ... who tried to buy elections.''

According to the most recent financial reporting, Angelides, a millionaire former Sacramento real estate developer, had $14.5 million cash on hand, compared with $23 million reported by Westly, a multimillionaire former eBay executive, the Mercury News reported.

The Field Poll also found that in a head-to-head match up with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, Westly would be tied with Schwarzenegger at 43 percent, while Schwarzenegger would best Angelides, 44 percent to 40 percent. "We're pleased and optimistic with where the governor currently stands with California voters," Schwarzenegger campaign spokeswoman Julie Soderlund told the Bee. However, Schwarzenegger's popularity may also depend on how he deals with a fund-raising visit by the unpopular President George W. Bush and emergency measures caused by weather conditions.

Politicos now predict the long knives of negative campaigning will come out, though Democrats are loath to consider the consequences. "Slime attacks would be a death knell to the Democratic candidate because it'll all be dredged up after the primary," Michael Andraychak, president of Stonewall Democratic Club, told IN Los Angeles magazine. "Schwarzenegger is just sitting back, collecting all this information right now."

Westly's surge in popularity is occurring among LGBT Democrats, too. A recommendation from Stonewall's endorsement committee to endorse Angelides, which was initially expected to sail through, failed to garner the necessary 60 percent of votes to pass and the vote was postponed to the April 24 meeting (7 p.m. at West Hollywood Park). Several Stonewall members tell IN that the outcome depends not on which candidate is "the best Democrat" or has done the most for the LGBT community for the longest, but on which candidate turns out its voting constituency.

That apparently was also the case in Sacramento April 13 when Westly won the endorsement of the Stonewall Democratic Club of Greater Sacramento, the largest Stonewall chapter in the country with 493 members, both gay and non-gay, and the largest Democratic club in Sacramento. The vote was extremely close, with Westly winning by one vote over the 60 percent needed, according to club president Dr. Darrick Lawson.

Both Angelides and Westly spoke at the club's regular meetings, Lawson told IN. "It became very clear that Steve has been a longtime supporter of the LGBT community back to 1970 when he was running for class president at Stanford and had LGBT issues on his platform. More than half of his staff is gay and Phil had only one gay person, a financial director, who was fired. I don't know if he has any openly gay paid staff -- he had none when he spoke. But I mean, you can throw a stone in Sacramento and hit 50 of us. So that planted a seed in people's decision making. That reflects how open people are to accepting you. It seems Phil has a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. If you are, fine. But I don't really want to know.

"Frankly I'm not a political person like the other members," Lawson said. "I'm a chiropractor, a small business person, and I do like being fiscally conservative. I saw that in Steve."

Lawson said that the assumption was that the club would endorse Angelides since he's the hometown Sacramento candidate. But after both hearing Angelides and Westly speak, Lawson and most of the club "liked his fresh ideas and the business savvy we saw in Steve. And I really feel that he really loves the gay community. Phil will do the right thing, but Steve loves us. It's a different thing, and it was palpable in the room. If you get to know Steve, you fall in love with him. You think, 'Oh my gosh, this is the guy the Democrats have been waiting for.' He's a quiet soul but so wise with incredible ideas."

Laurie McBride, co-chair of the board of the National Stonewall Democrats, political director for the Sacramento Stonewall club and a longtime Angelides supporter and friend, saw the vote differently. "All of the endorsement votes were really close and I think it was a matter of who showed up and who didn't. [Apparently none of the LGBT caucus members who endorsed Angelides were present.] A couple of more people there and the vote could have turned out differently. "

McBride also noted that the Westly campaign office in Sacramento employs a number of gay men, "some of whom have been active in the club for a very long time, like Press Secretary Nick Velasquez. I think that really makes a difference. So, needless to say, I was disappointed. But in any of these contests, I don't think it's a lock anymore and Westly has a very aggressive ground campaign. When both Angelides and Westly spoke, I thought Angelides was the more compelling. I think he has more of a vision and more of a plan and he understands California better. His knowledge of how California works is phenomenal. People say he's too much of a policy wonk. But I'd like to have a wonk in charge for a while. What I don't want to see happen is Westly and Angelides kill each other in the primary and then we have a wounded warrior facing Arnold in November."

A straw poll conducted March 14 by openly gay L.A. County Democratic Party Chair Eric Bauman of 163 LACDP members in advance of the California Democratic Party convention April 28-30 was less ambiguous. Angelides won the straw poll by 54 percent to Westly's 28 percent, with 18 percent remaining undecided. The hot and heavy race for Lieutenent governor was also uneventful with Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi (Bauman's boss in real life) drawing 65 percent to 11 percent for state Sen. Jackie Speier (who is very strong elsewhere) and state Sen. Liz Figueroa at 7 percent. (After a stormy battle between Garamendi and Speier supporters, Sacramento Democrats decided "no consensus," and thus a non-endorsement. Stonewall/LA endorsed Garamendi.)

Stonewall engaged in a hot debate over the attorney general race -- with recommended and expected candidate Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown failing to qualify for the 60 percent of votes against L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo over the issue of marriage equality. The result was no consensus, no endorsement, and considered a win for Delgadillo. Fearing a repeated defeat, Brown showed up at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club's endorsement meeting April 10 and declared his unequivocal support for marriage equality, according to the Bay Area Reporter. The club also endorsed Angelides.

The LACDP suffered no such angst, apparently, voting 60 percent for Brown, 24 percent for Delgadillo, and 16 percent undecided.

Meanwhile, other races are drawing considerable attention within the LGBT community, especially those being run by legislators who voted in favor of the marriage equality bill and now face considerable backlash for their courageous vote. The race for the 34th Senate District, the Orange County seat being vacated by Sen. Joe Dunn, for instance, will be one of the most important and heated contests in the primary.

When Dunn was elected in 1998, there were no Democrats from the entire county in the state Legislature. Dunn served two terms and has been very supportive of the LGBT community. He has been endorsed by the Equality California (EQCA) PAC, as well as the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club (ERDC) and the Elections Committee of the County of Orange (ECCO) in his race for state controller against Board of Equalization Chair John Chiang, who is endorsed by Stonewall Democrats and favored in the LACDP poll.

Assemblymember Tom Umberg, who survived a smear campaign against him last year, announced his intentions to run for this seat more than a year ago. He won the endorsements of ERDC and ECCO and is one of three assemblymembers endorsed by the EQCA PAC who are running against opponents who do not support marriage equality.

"As Assemblymember Umberg cast the deciding 41st vote for the same-sex marriage bill, at a high political cost in his conservative district, it is incumbent upon our community to send a clear message that we will reward our friends at any and all cost," ECCO Political Director Jeff LeTourneau told IN. "We are at an historic crossroads and we must protect that seat."

Umberg, a former federal prosecutor, won the Assembly seat vacated by Democrat Lou Correa in Orange County's 69th Assembly District. He had previously held this seat in 1990 when he became the only Democratic assemblyman from Orange County, during which time he was an outspoken and courageous supporter of LGBT and HIV/AIDS issues

But Orange County Supervisor and former Assemblyman Lou Correa has jumped in to oppose Umberg in the primary. Lou Correa served in the Assembly from 1998 to 2004 and has a speckled record on LGBT issues, including failing to cast the deciding vote on then-Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl's "Dignity for All Students" bill. It passed the following year as The California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 and was signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis. Subsequently, Correa has abstained or been absent often on critical votes.

Most shocking, however, was Correa's June 24, 2004, vote against a resolution by the state Legislature officially opposing the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. The resolution passed by a vote of 44 to 28 with several abstentions from both parties, but the LGBT community in Orange County was stunned: ERDC Chair Chris Prevatt remarked, "With friends like Lou, who needs enemies?"

Marriage equality continues to matter on a larger scale. Invited to an intimate, expensive fund-raiser featuring former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton to benefit Mrs. Clinton's re-election campaign, Dr. Scott Hitt wrote the host: "Please feel free to ask me again after Senator Clinton changes her recent public stand in opposition of marriage equality. As long as she believes in second class citizenship for me and my partner of 25 years I will not support her in any primary race when there is an alternative candidate who does. In this case it is the principled Senator Russ Feingold."

- Denise Penn contributed to this report.