SAN FRANCISCO — State Treasurer Phil Angelides on Tuesday became the first Democrat to announce his candidacy for governor, lambasting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an insensitive elitist who has not lived up to his campaign pledges.
The governor thinks that "if we just shower more fortune on the fortunate, the crumbs will reach the rest, like the leftovers of a Hollywood dinner party," Angelides said at an elementary school here as he started a five-day swing throughout the state.
The treasurer has been the governor's most unyielding Democratic detractor almost since the moment Schwarzenegger took office.
Dashing from this city to his hometown of Sacramento to a charter school in South Los Angeles on Tuesday, Angelides repeated earlier criticism that Schwarzenegger had failed to cure California's financial problems and instead propelled the state deeper into debt. And the governor has restricted access to higher education and cut programs for the poor, Angelides said.
"I fear that this governor views the life of hardworking Californians as some kind of athletic endurance test, where only the strong should survive, where we must just lavish more on those who have the most," said Angelides, 51.
Schwarzenegger has not said he would seek reelection, but the state GOP has already endorsed him for a second term. Recent polls show that Schwarzenegger is far more popular than any Democrat, but his support has slipped substantially since last year.
The early timing of Angelides' announcement -- 20 months before the 2006 election -- was widely interpreted as an effort to box out potential Democratic competitors. State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer has said he was planning to run, and Controller Steve Westly is said to be considering the race.
Angelides announced Tuesday the endorsements of two of California's highest-profile Democrats: U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. But "I have no illusions about the difficulty of this race," he said at each stop.
Unlike many Democratic leaders, who have tried to find common ground with the governor, Angelides has been dubbed the "anti-Schwarzenegger." In an interview Tuesday, he could not name any Schwarzenegger action -- minor or major -- that he admired without qualification.
Angelides campaigned vigorously last year against the governor's $15-billion borrowing package that balanced the state budget, and has been a persistent foil since then. He said Tuesday that Schwarzenegger had issued "enough hot checks to melt Glacier Point."
