After the bruising Dem primary in which Davis outslugged Checchi and  Harman for the nomination, South went on to run a Davis campaign that fought desperately hard to avoid looking too "liberal" in its quest to represent the "mainstream".  He raked in cash from any source he could get it, a trait which eventually led to his downfall.  He fought the entire time for the "moderation" without principle  that has since been redubbed "Bush Lite":

"This election was a clear affirmation that Californians want to take a moderate course to the future," Davis told supporters here even before Lungren conceded the election.(WaPo 11/4/98)

The California governor's race got off to its earliest start ever as Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren sparred in their first debate Friday night over who truly represents the mainstream of the nation's most populous state. ... "I think Singapore is a good starting point, in terms of law and order," Davis said, adding the state can't punish criminals enough. ... In Friday's debate, the styles of the two party leaders were clearly etched. Davis, a cautious politician and skilled fund-raiser, was more often on the defensive, and he seemed to dance around several direct questions. (WaPo 8/2/98)

The Primary:  Davis was a sitting governor, so he had only token opposition.  South and his crew decided to meddle in the GOP primary by preemptively attacking Mayor Richard Riordan hoping to face the less formidable Bill Simon.

After South spent money fueling Bill Simon's campaign, Davis defeated Simon, although in a surprisingly close race. Considering that Simon was something of a political novice (and a radically conservative one at that) and Davis was a sitting governor, the fact that Davis garnered only 52% as a sitting governor with a substantial party registration advantage was something of a bad omen.  South was forced to go negative early and often during the race, a fact that made Davis even less popular.  Davis was considered by most to just be a bit less scary than Simon; his constituency had evaporated.

Garry South is OK, but I realized he was very old school when I talked with him at the CA convo in '03. When I brought up the potential that Davis would be recalled, he scoffed, citing history as proof it couldn't happen. I brought up that wingers on FreeRepublic were hopping it up, and all they needed was a bit of money to organize the effort. He couldn't fathom the internet-thing making it happening. ... (MyDD 8/27/06)

What's really important to understand about South's remark there is that South didn't believe that people outside his little circle could make anything happen.  He still doesn't.  The bungling of Davis' first administration combined with the tone and tenor of the 2002 campaign run by South had left Davis with few friends; he was left with contributors, though.  Davis was still able to raise a boatload of cash for the recall fight, but it was essentially lost the moment that Arnold Schwarzenegger entered the race.  Thanks in no small part to Garry South, Davis was, by this time, a symptom of all that ailed Sacramento. He was a politician in the worst sense of the word, and no amount of money could save him. With approval ratings in the 20s (sound like anybody else you know?)

But Schwarzenegger's announcement was just the final blow to Davis; he had been dealt the rest by South's campaign.  Davis and South had promoted divisiveness and the principle-free pay-for-play politics that many of us, on both sides of the political spectrum, have come to abhor.  Democrats abandoned Davis as an old political hack.  The 2002 Campaign had played his last card.  Davis and South had come out swinging with everything they had.  By the time the recall election was approaching, it was clear that Davis and South were spent.  They could no longer play to moderates, as they were sick of "politics as usual" and were abandoning Davis in droves for the shiny new "moderate" model, Arnold. 

Nope, this time Garry South's principle-free triangulation had done him in.  Progressives sat on their hands as they watched the triangulating Dem flail as he sank into the depths of a recall.  But Garry South had not yet finished with his triangulations.

  South came aboard in 2003 and was working full-time with Lieberman after the Davis loss in the recall election.  South and Lieberman went on to run his inherent advantages into the ground, primarily by running a campaign that A) didn't address the invasion and occupation of Iraq and B) simply didn't connect to voters.  Now, part of this is just Joementum: he's not a great campaigner (as we've seen recently) and he's annoying in general.

This campaign became a laughing stock.  Joe's claim that they finished in a three way tie for third place was laughable.  (The man came in fifth place.)  Of his dropping out of the race, David Letterman said: "Because of poor results at the primaries last night, Senator Joe Lieberman will be dropping out of the race. Earlier today, he broke the news to his supporter." 

For South, "one of the top campaign strategists" this marked just one more embarrassing defeat.  But he'd have others.

The campaign hummed along for quite a while.  At one point, an LA Times Poll had Westly up by 13 points.  However, South's principle-free "moderation" reared its ugly head. South, ever the cynic, went negative early and often.  In one of the most cynical political moves of the primary campaign, South pushed Westly to demand that Angelides sign a no-negative advertising campaign pledge http://www.americanc....  While South was talking up the "pledge" he was simultaneously issuing attack press releases, and making negative comments about Angelides to the media.  You see the letter was limited specifically to "paid advertising." If reporters wanted to repeat South's slung mud as "earned media", South wasn't opposed to that.

And the cynicism ended up hurting the campaign and the party.  As Angelides started to shrug off the Westly leads of April, South went back to his attack-ad comfort zone.  Unfortunately, only a few weeks earlier, Westly had run an ad touting his no-negative-campaigning pledge.  Oops!

To political strategists not involved in the campaign, the most telling sign of the shift in momentum was Westly's launch of attack ads. It was particularly telling, since by doing so Westly violated his own pledge, touted only four weeks earlier.

"The guy to throw the first punch is the guy who is losing," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist unaligned in the primary. (LA Times

In the end, people were angered over the turnabout.  The negative campaign pledge ended up hurting Westly far more than it ever helped.  But what did more damage is the way that South chose to attack.  Some of his ads, fact checked on the series of tubes

1. An attack ad about an illegal Lake Tahoe dredging project blaming Phil Angelides for the project.  This was a lie: Angelides had nothing to do with the project.  An Angelides corporation owned a portion of one condo in the community.  Angelides was cleared of all claims.




2. A series of false attacks on Angelides' position on taxes.  Westly, and South, used old proposals, essentially anything he had ever said, and totaled them all up to reach a total of $10 Billion.  Bottom line:  This was a lie.  Angelides didn't propose $10 Billion in tax increases.  Period. It's just not true.  The truly damaging element of this line of attack is that South worked very very hard to push the Phil is a big-government tax-and-spend liberal bad guy.  Thing is: Democrats don't fear government for fear's sake.  That's the domain of the GOP, as is the fearmongering built into those talking points.  In fact, many Democrats consider government action for the greater good to be a core liberal value.


In the end, South's strategy in primary so handicapped the winner, no matter who it was, that Arnold was given a huge advantage.  By attacking liberal values, South could not have teed up the winner for Arnold's campaign team to hammer if the Republicans had paid South for the favor. 

"When it comes to Angelides, it would be hard to single out his biggest liability because he's a walking Achilles heel,'' said Garry South, the chief strategist for the Westly campaign. "Arnold and his Karl Rove-trained wrecking crew will tear the guy apart, atom by atom...he won't know what hit him.''

Or how about this story in Capitol Weekly.  I'm pretty sure that this didn't really help the Democratic cause:

But South has become Angelides' most vocal Democratic critic. One of the most common threads of South's posts--and a theme Westly harped on during the primary--is what South perceives as Angelides' lack of electiblity.

"In the face of what should have been a sobering contrast in viability, the big-shot Democratic politicians and interest-group poobahs continued to cheerlead for Angelides and badmouth Westly," South wrote on July 11.

Regarding the state party endorsement at the convention, South continued, "67 percent of the delegates! The level of self-delusion about Angelides in that hall was so high you could drown in it standing on a step-ladder."

Don't you just love his utter disdain for the base of his party?  Isn't that just great how he mocks the convention goers?  How he believes that his triangulation would have worked soooo much better.  His remarks were less about Angelides and more about his wounded pride.  Frankly, we don't have time for that bullshit.

In the end, Garry South hurts the California Dems more than he helps.  If "Crashing the Gate" is to have a real and lasting legacy, I hope it is to put principle-free party operatives like this far, far away from our campaigns.