Gubernatorial election campaign in full swing

As the November 7 election in California draws near, political parties are going all out to rally support for their respective candidates.

The Los Angeles Labor Movement launched a campaign on Wednesday to urge voters to support Democratic candidate state treasurer Phil Angelides, while incumbent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's supporters are encouraging more registration to build support for the governor.

Labor leaders said they will contact 500,000-plus voters in the next four weeks to build support for Angelides.

"Governor (Arnold) Schwarzenegger cannot be trusted," said Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. "He attacked our teachers, firefighters, police officers, home care workers and nurses."

"We need Phil Angelides to fully fund public education, cut fees so students can afford to go to college, and take on big corporations that attack our workers," said the labor leader.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger's aide Matt David said the California Republican Party is organizing voter registration and education efforts for the governor's campaign.

The organization has more than 50,000 volunteers working out of 48 phone bank centers around the state, said Hector Barajas with the California Republican Party.

"There are many things in our favor," Barajas said. "We've got a very popular Republican governor, we've got a good slate of candidates, and I think we've got an operation that we've been working on for the last 2 1/2 years that we've been able to implement in full swing this election cycle."

As of Sept. 8, California had 15.6 million registered voters, according to the Secretary of State's office. About 42 percent of voters are registered Democrats; 34.4 percent are listed as Republicans.

Also on Wednesday, the Asian American Voter Project announced the launch of its campaign urging Asian Pacific Americans to go to the polls in November.

The group ran a similar campaign prior to the June primary, in which bilingual mailers were sent to 11,000 voters and 19,000 phone calls were made to 9,000 voters.

"The results of our June campaign have us excited for November, " said Susan Dilkes, executive director of the Filipino American Service Group.

"However, to keep up the momentum and reach our phone bank target of 12,500 voters, we need to recruit over 200 bilingual volunteers to help staff our phone banks starting in mid-October."

A recent survey showed that Schwarzenegger held a commanding lead over Angelides, just about five weeks before election day.

While many Democrats and independents said they support Republican Schwarzenegger, his opponent Angelides had built scant support beyond a core base of liberals, according to the poll.

If the Nov. 7 election were held today, 50 percent of likely voters would favor the governor, while 33 percent would support Angelides, according to the poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times.

The survey found an abundance of grim signs for Angelides, including a failure to match Schwarzenegger's success in rallying voters of his own party strongly behind his candidacy. Just 61 percent of Democrats support Angelides, while 88 percent of Republicans favor Schwarzenegger. And as for independents, a crucial swing vote, 49 percent support Schwarzenegger, 31 percent favor Angelides.

Source: Xinhua