IE to hit the air

Bill Bradley has the lateston the independent expenditure campaign going forth for Phil Angelides. A Coalition of Firefighters, Cops, Deputy Sheriffs, Home Builders, and Developers,” spent just under $600,000 so far on cable TV advertising time over two weeks in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Fresno, Monterey, Bakersfield, and Santa Barbara markets. No broadcast TV time has been bought as yet, but pro-Angelides sources say that is coming. The official Angelides for Governor campaign, meanwhile, remains off the air. While the role of longtime Angelides patron and business partner Angelo Tsakopoulos, regarded as the Sacramento area’s leading developer and one of California’s richest men, and his associates looms larger, the firefighters union and the other labor members of the new group are insistent that their actions are independent of the official Angelides campaign. “We approached Angelo Tsakopoulos to fund this effort,” says California Professional Firefighters spokesman Carroll Wills of his union. “He didn’t approach us. We’re happy to have his backing.” Nor, he says, did the Angelides campaign direct them to approach Tsakopoulos. “Of course we would go to Angelo Tsakopoulos for his contributions and his help with funding this,” he said. The close Angelides-Tsakopoulos relationship is very well known in California political circles.