Angelides Brings Campaign to Berkeley

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides made a campaign stop at a South Berkeley home last week, the sixth residence he has visited on a statewide tour trumpeting his proposed tax cuts for the middle class.

About 70 area residents filled the leafy backyard of Berkeley Unified School District spokesperson Mark Coplan's house and greeted Angelides with eruptions of applause.

"I am going to give a tax break to the people who make this economy hum," he said.

Angelides said incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has led California into economic stagnation by coddling HMOs, large oil companies and America's wealthiest citizens at the expense of middle-class families.

Angelides, the current state treasurer, was flanked by Robert Reich, a UC Berkeley public policy professor who served as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.

Reich said the same formula that led to prosperity in the 1990s could bring the state out of the doldrums: closing corporate tax loopholes, lowering higher-education costs and balancing the budget.

"That economy was the best economy we've had in the United States in decades," he said.

Many audience members gasped as Angelides said the entire state created only 900 jobs in July.

But in an interview Friday, Amar Mann, an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said the variability of monthly figures is too high to denote a trend. He said Schwarzenegger has presided over moderate job growth, including the creation of 18,000 jobs in June and 74,000 last July.

Angelides counts several allies among the ranks of local elected officials. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, four city council members and Rep. Barbara Lee attended the event.

In prepared remarks, Lee said education is a key interest of both the city of Berkeley and Angelides.

Audience member Henry Reichman, who will chair the academic senate at CSU East Bay this year, said enrollment problems at his school stem from fee increases incurred during Schwarzenegger's tenure.

According to the UC Office of the President, mandatory fees increased by $700 in 2004-05 and by $457 in

2005-06, although fees remain unchanged in 2006-07 as a result of Schwarzenegger's state budget.

Mirroring his campaign's $2 million statewide television campaign released one day earlier, Angelides cast Schwarzenegger as an ally of President George W. Bush who campaigned on behalf of the president in Ohio during 2004.

"Each and every day, (Bush and Schwarzenegger) think about how to give more to the privileged," Angelides said.

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