Dem campaigns heat up

The press release war between Phil Angelides and Steve Westly is heating up. Yesterday, a half-dozen emails went out from the campaigns to reporters (in fairness, some of those e-mails were not pithy "memos"). The Angelides campaign continues to focus on Westly's wealth--and how much money he has donated to his campaign. Of particular interest is how he earned money from ‘spinning’, as the Angelides campaign says, which is receiving IPO allocations from investment banks doing business with eBay, *** Here's an excerpt from one Angelides release: From July 1, 2005 – December 31, 2005, Westly raised only $2.5 million from people who don’t share his first and last name, barely more than the $1.9 million he spent on overhead. History has shown that Californians demand more than just a big checkbook from their leaders. By this time eight years ago, Al Checchi had already spent $18 million in his attempt to buy the Governor’s office. Never one to learn from history or from his own consultant, Steve Westly appears to be preparing to steal a page from the Checchi playbook. But we’re reminded of the words of his consultant Garry South, who once said, “…regardless of how much money you spend – up to levels that can only be described as obscene – you can't fool the voters.” For their part, the Westly campaign responds that "Phil “Pay-to-Play” Angelides has no business criticizing Steve Westly’s decision to invest his own money into his bid to win this campaign and put California back on the right track." ***CORRECTION: The original post said "spinning" was related to stock options. It is not.