SAN FRANCISCO — A political “tidal wave” is sweeping the nation and State Treasurer Phil Angelides plans to ride that wave into the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, Angelides said on Tuesday during a whirlwind tour through the Bay Area.
While Angelides supports immigrants, the middle class, and education, his opponent in the governor’s race lacks “core values,” he claimed.
“What’s coming across this country is a Democratic tidal wave in which Democrats, independents, and thoughtful Republicans are going to seek fairly dramatic change,” Angelides said. “And Governor Schwarzenegger’s not going to be exempt from that.”
“I think he believes in only one thing: himself,” Angelides said. “He’ll say anything or do anything to win. People get that in their gut. They know there’s something inherently phony about the guy.”
Angelides, the Democratic candidate for governor, will face incumbent Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the general election in two weeks.
Angelides’s busy campaign schedule included a stop at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Tuesday afternoon. Several Chinese American leaders joined Angelides as he visited a dozen neighborhood merchants accompanied by a troupe of lion dancers and drummers that attracted a train of curious locals and tourists
“We are fortunate to have a candidate for governor who comes to visit Chinatown and is going to listen to our community’s problems and concerns of our small businesses,” said Pius Lee, the real estate investor and former port commissioner who chairs Chinese-Americans for Angelides.
“There are 86,000 Asian American voters in San Francisco,” said Lawrence Wong, president of the community college board. “And we want all 86,000 registered Asian Americans to vote for Phil Angelides.”
Angelides’s efforts to reach out to those Asian Americans and other voters include having his daughters join him in his campaign. “We put them on TV because they’re better looking and more articulate than their dad,” he said.
Christina Angelides, 22, recently graduated from Harvard, where she studied Chinese and worked in rural China. Her Chinese-language appeal for voter support elicited numerous gasps from the crowd.
“You wanna translate?” Angelides, who does not speak Chinese, repeatedly asked her.
The candidate also compared his Greek immigrant grandfather, who worked on railroads, to the Chinese immigrants who worked on the railroads.
“Phil Angelides really touches base with the immigrant community. He’s really sincere and he can relate a lot more than Arnold,” said Ricardo Solis, 56, a health inspector from Lancaster, in southern California. Solis’s parents emigrated from Mexico, and his wife is also from Mexico.
Although Schwarzenegger is an immigrant, Solis believes that the governor has been too conservative, and that his recent shift to the center is only a political ploy for reelection.
Solis added that he believes Angelides is more in tune with the needs of the public education system in the state, which he described as “lagging so far behind.” His eight grandchildren will all go through the California public education system.
“The only way the Latino community and the immigrant community can progress is through education,” he said.
Angelides visited the Sweet Mart on Washington Street as part of his handshake tour of local merchants. Owner Daniel Lo, 52, seemed surprised by the visit.
After Angelides left, he laughed and said, “They help us, we help them.”
Regarding Schwarzenegger, Lo grinned and said, “Yeah, he’s a movie star. I watch his movies.”
Lo thinks he knows who he’s voting for, but declined to state who that would be.