A Governor of Enduring Value: Phil Angelides

I want a Governor who cares about enduring value. One that is leveraging her or his power to create a future that is better for all of us--that will use the resources of our state wisely and be willing to take on serious reform in California.

Schwarzenegger ran on a platform that promised to make the needs of everyday people the priority, not the so-called special interests. His administration has failed miserably. He showed he was in the pocket of special interests early on, surpassed Gray Davis in fundraising and has truly become the epitome of the cash-register politician. Whether it is the insurance industry or Wall Street brokers, Schwarzenegger bends over backwards to deliver for the richest of special interest groups on any given day.

Conservatives across the country are paying attention to the most serious reformer our state has seen in a while and Democrats should too-- California Treasurer Phil Angelides. Angelides is running for Governor and is kicking off his campaign this Tuesday, March 15 at 8:30 AM at 1451 Jackson Street in San Francisco. His reform efforts on the Board of CalPERS and CalSTRS, pension funds that invest 300 billion dollars, has created a national furor in conservative circles, including the National Chamber of Commerce, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Business Roundtable. They came out swinging.

In a recent edition of the Nation, they described his work:

Angelides has pushed both funds to adopt a whirlwind of reforms--dumping tobacco stocks, blacklisting ten "emerging markets" that ignore international labor standards, redeploying capital to neglected sectors like inner-city redevelopment and innovative environmental technologies, and, above all, peppering scores of corporations, banks, brokerages, financial markets and federal regulators with critiques and demands for change.

"We're thirty-year investors and we have to take the long view," California Treasurer Phil Angelides explains. "I believe one of the things that led to the corruption of recent years was this notion that infected America that wealth is somehow created in six to nine months and all that matters is whether this quarter's returns are better than last quarter's--not whether you are building companies and products and an economy that will have enduring value."

His resonant phrase--"enduring value"--effectively summarizes the reform objective. The reformers understand that the current laissez-faire, let-'er-rip system damages important social values--equitable treatment of workers, the environment and other commonly shared public assets--and that both workers and retirees (and the state taxpayers who put up the money for public pension funds) have a strong self-interest, personal as well as financial, in husbanding the distant future: a healthy society and strong economy for themselves and their families.

Check him out. We could get lucky and get someone elected who cares about enduring value…who really gives a damn about our future.